“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”[1]
That’s a great philosophy, but in the absence of divinely-inspired wisdom, how the heck ARE we supposed to know the difference? And “courage” is not all that’s needed to change things – we have to figure out what and how. In fact, decision-making is one of the most painful and difficult of human activities.[2]
Let’s start with a concept we are all familiar with in the United State: Someone who is accused of a crime is considered innocent until proven guilty. But what constitutes “proof”? This is not the logical deductive proof of a mathematical concept (e.g., proving that the angles of a triangle on a two-dimensional plane must sum to 180 degrees), but rather the unanimous decision of twelve jurors “beyond a reasonable doubt” based on evidence presented in a court of law. Even one hold-out from the jury would result in a mistrial followed by a requirement to re-try the entire case from the beginning with a fresh jury.
Why do we make it so difficult to convict someone? In the United States, our entire criminal legal system is predicated on the notion that, in case of doubt, it’s better to let a guilty person go free than to convict and punish an innocent person. Therefore, the burden of proof is on the prosecution. The ultimate decision of the jury is actually never that the accused is categorically “innocent” but rather “not guilty” and therefore, even when there are some doubts, legally entitled to be treated as innocent.
Contrast criminal trials (e.g., murder or theft) with civil trials (e.g., “wrongful death” or a contractual dispute over ownership of an asset). Rather than demanding proof “beyond a reasonable doubt”, a civil trial jury is usually expected to make a decision based on “the preponderance of the evidence” (usually defined as “more likely than not”). The defendant will not have to worry about imprisonment, but may still face a huge fine.
In the recent federal intelligence analysis of evidence of Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee, there was initially a suggestion that the CIA and the FBI were not in full agreement about the appropriate level of “confidence” (since rectified). Apparently, the CIA sounded more “sure” about the conclusion than the FBI (until the FBI joined the CIA and the other 15 agencies responsible for US federal intelligence).[3] Some pundits pointed out that the FBI is usually focused on criminal investigations where they face a requirement to provide evidence that would stand up in a criminal prosecution in U.S. court “beyond a reasonable doubt” whereas the CIA’s mandate is to provide their best judgement about the behavior and motivations of foreign actors in order to inform foreign and defense decision-making.[4]
The situation is similar in many areas of research, including physics, psychology, climate science, day-to-day weather forecasting, and just about any area of inquiry that is primarily “evidence based” and trying to follow the scientific method. On the one hand, forecasts about day-to-day events (i.e., outside the realm of mathematics and pure logic) can never be proven 100% one way or another. On the other hand, a large body of scientific knowledge can be built up on the basis of repeated experiments and evidence such that a consensus (or near-consensus) can emerge on many scientific propositions (e.g., the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, the theory of evolution, the links between tobacco use and cancer, the links between fossil fuel emissions and climate change, etc.).
For example, as we get ready to leave the house in the morning, we check the weather report. If the forecast includes, say, a 30% chance of thunderstorm (e.g., depending on whether a front will pass to the north of our area or hit it straight on) some of us will bring an umbrella and others will decide to take a chance of getting wet. In the latter case, it makes little sense to blame the weather forecaster. Yet many people were astounded by the outcome of the November 8 election, even though Nate Silver’s Fivethirtyeight.com had assessed almost a 30% probability of a Trump victory as of Nov. 7.[5]
The New York Times “Upshot” forecast was further from the mark, assessing Trump’s chances at less than 15%, but used the helpful analogy of the odds of a quarterback missing a field-goal kick of X number of yards.[6]
So with the November election as a back-drop, let’s pivot to the topic of “fake news.” Clinton herself blamed it as one element contributing to her defeat[7] in an election decided by less than 100,000 votes in three states (Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin). Now President Trump is claiming, without evidence, that he only lost the popular vote because of “millions” of fraudulent votes.
With claims and counter-claims of fake news, how is the concerned citizen supposed to figure out what to believe?
The first task is some self-reflection and acknowledgement that all people tend to be less skeptical of information that tends to support what we already believe. We are more critical of information that tends to contradict what we already believe. When I first saw a post on Facebook in the spring of 2016 that appeared to come from People magazine a couple decades ago, and quoted Donald Trump as saying that, if he were ever to run for President he would run as a Republican because Republican voters were easier to fool, I smiled and probably “liked” it. The second time I saw it, I wondered to myself, “Is that too good to be true?” so I went to Snope.com.[8] DANG!
But apparently many people were fooled by this, because I saw it posted many more times over the next several months. There were many worse examples of fake news, too. The most notorious being the allegations of pedophilia taking place in a family-run pizza restaurant in Washington DC.[9] That one was even re-tweeted in October by now National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.[10]
Why is this happening? Some people are motivated by money – writing fake new stories that sound sensational get shared widely, which generates advertising revenue. Others may indeed have political motivations to influence election outcomes. Others may be content simply to sow doubt and cynicism and to discredit “the establishment.”
Even within the “mainstream media”, which are supposed to follow high standards of factual verification and integrity,[11] there are widespread complaints of errors of “omission” (in other words, failure to report information that may be of interest to the public) if not “commission” (reporting information that turns out to be incorrect). Newspapers “of record” such as the New York Times and the Washington Post famously insist on three independent sources before clearance for publication. Many newer cable and on-line media sometimes prioritize a “scoop” over verification. There are also legitimate questions about “editorializing” and “analysis” of news events as opposed to strict reporting of verified facts. The who, what, when, and where are usually facts that are expected to be verified; but the more interesting questions about “why” are more often subject to debate.
What can concerned citizens do to ensure they understand the differences between “real news” and “fake news,” and between “fact” and “opinion”?
Three excellent sources of advice include the following:
- The Washington Post “Fact Checker’s Guide to Fake News”, which provides examples of how to consider sources and to verify information:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/11/22/the-fact-checkers-guide-for-detecting-fake-news/?utm_term=.82a3831e0915
- Brainpicking’s summary of a useful book by the late scientist Carl Sagan, which includes broader and more general advice for examining evidence and determining what is likely to be true.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=e7c209fb2b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-e7c209fb2b-235127249&mc_cid=e7c209fb2b&mc_eid=37da424d87
- The League of Women Voters, which regularly undertakes research and analysis of political candidates and issues at all levels of government, and offers guidance on how an individual voter can assess the options:
http://lwv.org/content/how-judge-candidate
More sources:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/23/503129818/study-finds-students-have-dismaying-inability-to-tell-fake-news-from-real
http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/young-adults/
http://www.rstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/73.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/i-was-a-victim-of-a-russian-smear-campaign-i-understand-the-power-of-fake-news/2016/12/20/0dfdc2aa-c606-11e6-8bee-54e800ef2a63_story.html?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.3c889d7d65c5
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/us/politics/fake-news-claims-conservatives-mainstream-media-.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/technology/for-fact-checking-website-snopes-a-bigger-role-brings-more-attacks.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/27/magazine/the-problem-with-self-investigation-in-a-post-truth-era.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-the-debate-over-journalism-post-trump-gets-wrong/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fake-news-guide-facebook_us_5831c6aae4b058ce7aaba169?
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/07/opinion/sunday/how-to-destroy-the-business-model-of-breitbart-and-fake-news.html?_r=1
https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/the-emergence-of-a-post-fact-world-by-francis-fukuyama-2017-01
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/what-is-fake-news_uk_5878e135e4b04a8bfe6a612e?
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/14/opinion/sunday/lessons-from-russia-verify-everything-dont-publish-rumors.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/19/crisis-of-statistics-big-data-democracy
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/fake-news-hillary-clinton-cameron-harris.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/gaslighting-know-it-and-identify-it-protect-yourself
http://billmoyers.com/story/10-investigative-reporting-outlets-to-follow/
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/big-data-cambridge-analytica-brexit-trump
http://www.wnyc.org/story/on-the-media-2017-01-27
[1] Reinhold Niebuhr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer
[2] Kahneman, Daniel (2011) Thinking Fast and Slow
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-blames-putins-personal-grudge-against-her-for-election-interference/2016/12/16/12f36250-c3be-11e6-8422-eac61c0ef74d_story.html?utm_term=.3ad56e0a1166
[4] NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/us/politics/cia-judgment-intelligence-russia-hacking-evidence.html
[5] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/final-election-update-theres-a-wide-range-of-outcomes-and-most-of-them-come-up-clinton/?ex_cid=2016-forecast
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/presidential-polls-forecast.html
[7] http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/08/politics/hillary-clinton-fake-news-epidemic/
[8] http://www.snopes.com/1998-trump-people-quote/
[9] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/dec/13/2016-lie-year-fake-news/
[10] http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/michael-flynn-conspiracy-pizzeria-trump-232227