I believe that Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World should be required reading in high school. The way Sagan presents his "baloney detection kit" is pretty similar to these pre-bunking videos...
I believe that Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World should be required reading in high school. The way Sagan presents his "baloney detection kit" is pretty similar to these pre-bunking videos discussed in the article.
I think our education system focuses too much on rote memorization and not enough on building critical thinking skills. This is backwards. Once people know how to think, learning things like math and biology will become much easier. Having "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell" memorized is less useful than having the skills necessary to find and understand that information. And it has the side effect of teaching people how to spot conspiracy theories.
I haven't read that book but I will. I think this "pre-bunking" term is mainly there to catch headlines, but underneath it is just a common scientific process of developing and testing formal...
I haven't read that book but I will. I think this "pre-bunking" term is mainly there to catch headlines, but underneath it is just a common scientific process of developing and testing formal models for what otherwise seems like common sense. As in, "teach critical thinking skills to help people be more critical of things they hear? Duh!". A lot of Nobel prizes in economics are the same -- in plain English they sound simple enough, but developing empirically testable models takes a lot of work.
Re: Sagan's book, while "pre-bunking" may be useful, I 100% agree with you that incorporating critical thinking skills into early education (or education at all levels) is the better way to go. One thing that makes me really uncomfortable about the pre-bunking work is that it is funded by Google. And the following line made me want to cringe:
While journalistic fact checks can be effective in debunking a particular piece of misinformation, they’re time and labor intensive.
Are they saying that journalism isn't important? Or am I wrong?
I think they’re just saying that countering misinformation with fact-checking isn’t a perfect solution. To debunk a piece of misinformation via journalistic fact-checking, you’re doing it after...
Are they saying that journalism isn't important? Or am I wrong?
I think they’re just saying that countering misinformation with fact-checking isn’t a perfect solution. To debunk a piece of misinformation via journalistic fact-checking, you’re doing it after the piece has been published. You need to have an individual with the knowledge to see a piece as flawed, and the time, energy, and resources to research how it is wrong, present that counter-argument, and have a platform large enough to reach the same audience as the original piece. It’s like cybersecurity. You’re always fighting a losing battle if all you can do is react. Pre-bunking is for trying to make it so fewer people fall for misinformation, fact-checking articles are for informing people who were misinformed after the fact. Both are important and tackle the same issue from opposite sides and you probably need both to properly “fight” misinformation.
After re-reading, I think you're right about this. I'm very sensitive to anything that diminishes the importance of journalism, especially independent, non-corporate journalism, but I don't think...
After re-reading, I think you're right about this. I'm very sensitive to anything that diminishes the importance of journalism, especially independent, non-corporate journalism, but I don't think that's what they intended with the quoted sentence.
Absolutely! I understand the impulse to defend independent journalism from unfair criticism. It is a good and necessary impulse in the modern day. While it might not have been the case here, you...
Absolutely! I understand the impulse to defend independent journalism from unfair criticism. It is a good and necessary impulse in the modern day. While it might not have been the case here, you don't have to look too far to find instances where that IS what is happening.
While it might seem off-topic at first, I think Dan Olsen's video on The Wall actually dives into this in a really important way. The full discussion can be found starting at this chapter but if...
think our education system focuses too much on rote memorization and not enough on building critical thinking skills. This is backwards. Once people know how to think, learning things like math and biology will become much easier. Having "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell" memorized is less useful than having the skills necessary to find and understand that information. And it has the side effect of teaching people how to spot conspiracy theories.
While it might seem off-topic at first, I think Dan Olsen's video on The Wall actually dives into this in a really important way. The full discussion can be found starting at this chapter but if you only care specifically about the discussion around education you can jump to 21:40 into the video. Rather than the difference being memorization vs critical thinking, it is framed (correctly, IMO) as a battle over what the purpose of education is. Is the goal of education to prepare people for the "real world" by teaching what you need to know to be an effective worker? Or is the goal of education to educate people because we think education is ethically/morally good and important?
In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, the researchers detail how short online videos that teach basic critical thinking skills can make people better able to resist misinformation.
It’s an approach called “pre-bunking” and it builds on years of research into an idea known as inoculation theory that suggests exposing people to how misinformation works, using harmless, fictional examples, can boost their defenses to false claims.
Researchers are now investigating how long the effects last, and whether “booster” videos can help sustain the benefits.
I believe that Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World should be required reading in high school. The way Sagan presents his "baloney detection kit" is pretty similar to these pre-bunking videos discussed in the article.
I think our education system focuses too much on rote memorization and not enough on building critical thinking skills. This is backwards. Once people know how to think, learning things like math and biology will become much easier. Having "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell" memorized is less useful than having the skills necessary to find and understand that information. And it has the side effect of teaching people how to spot conspiracy theories.
I haven't read that book but I will. I think this "pre-bunking" term is mainly there to catch headlines, but underneath it is just a common scientific process of developing and testing formal models for what otherwise seems like common sense. As in, "teach critical thinking skills to help people be more critical of things they hear? Duh!". A lot of Nobel prizes in economics are the same -- in plain English they sound simple enough, but developing empirically testable models takes a lot of work.
Re: Sagan's book, while "pre-bunking" may be useful, I 100% agree with you that incorporating critical thinking skills into early education (or education at all levels) is the better way to go. One thing that makes me really uncomfortable about the pre-bunking work is that it is funded by Google. And the following line made me want to cringe:
Are they saying that journalism isn't important? Or am I wrong?
I think they’re just saying that countering misinformation with fact-checking isn’t a perfect solution. To debunk a piece of misinformation via journalistic fact-checking, you’re doing it after the piece has been published. You need to have an individual with the knowledge to see a piece as flawed, and the time, energy, and resources to research how it is wrong, present that counter-argument, and have a platform large enough to reach the same audience as the original piece. It’s like cybersecurity. You’re always fighting a losing battle if all you can do is react. Pre-bunking is for trying to make it so fewer people fall for misinformation, fact-checking articles are for informing people who were misinformed after the fact. Both are important and tackle the same issue from opposite sides and you probably need both to properly “fight” misinformation.
After re-reading, I think you're right about this. I'm very sensitive to anything that diminishes the importance of journalism, especially independent, non-corporate journalism, but I don't think that's what they intended with the quoted sentence.
Absolutely! I understand the impulse to defend independent journalism from unfair criticism. It is a good and necessary impulse in the modern day. While it might not have been the case here, you don't have to look too far to find instances where that IS what is happening.
While it might seem off-topic at first, I think Dan Olsen's video on The Wall actually dives into this in a really important way. The full discussion can be found starting at this chapter but if you only care specifically about the discussion around education you can jump to 21:40 into the video. Rather than the difference being memorization vs critical thinking, it is framed (correctly, IMO) as a battle over what the purpose of education is. Is the goal of education to prepare people for the "real world" by teaching what you need to know to be an effective worker? Or is the goal of education to educate people because we think education is ethically/morally good and important?