Some things that are labeled as being facts are not facts. A good example appears on the web site called Facts.net, which says (as you can see in the screen grab displayed here): Momofuku Ando was awarded the Ig Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. In recognition of his contributions to world peace through his invention […]
ORF radio, in Austria, interviewed me about fact and truth, a couple hours before I gave a 15-minute keynote talk about that on an ORF TV program: Ig-Nobel: Facts and Truth in Science — “Fake News” is a term that is currently under discussion – so also last night at an event in the Radiokulturhaus. […]
Professors Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin West from University of Washington have developed a new interdisciplinary course with the compelling title of Calling Bullshit. From publication bias to fake news, bullshit is everywhere. And it’s important to be able to navigate it, separate delusion from reality, and call out bullshit when we see it. In a post-truth world, […]
There’s more than one history of facts. There’s “The History of Facts“, the doctoral-level course at Central European University. There’s the recent book A History of the Modern Fact, by Mary Poovey [pictured here], and the much older book A History of Facts, by Ebenezer Hinds. And now there’s an obituary of Fact. (HT Dan Falk)
“The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it […]