I will be quite occupied for the next few weeks, so I’m thinking of setting up a few virtual interviews for the next few editions of the newsletter so that the hours I typically spend reading articles for the newsletter can be used for moving and packing instead. If you’ve been reading this for a while, you know what I’m into. Drop me a line or click the link below to fill up a short form if you’re interested in chatting about misinformation and media, data and democracy, science and society, and the likes.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is probably not real
I missed this article when it first came out in December 2020, and maybe it’s because – as the author himself wrote in his opening line – “I want the Dunning-Kruger effect to be real.” Jonathan Jarry of McGill University explained that the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is often used to show why incompetent people don’t know they’re unskilled, may actually just be a data artefact.
So, ehh, I guess I don’t know what I don’t know. 🤷🏽♀️
Why the finest minds in 1930s Europe believed that scientists must engage with citizens
...Or risk losing their moral compass, writes Deborah R. Coen for Aeon:
It’s important to recognise the radical move that Fleck, Zilsel, Neurath, Benjamin and Schrödinger made by underscoring the value of two-way communication between scientists and the public. Their point was not simply that communication with non-scientists could free science of technical jargon and elucidate its murkier concepts. They were urging scientists to approach the public with humility and to relinquish a measure of control over the direction of scientific research. Science found its best protection against authoritarianism not by retreating from public engagement but by pursuing it with greater intentionality – developing appropriate language and settings for communication with the public.
The yoga world is riddled with anti-vaxxers and QAnon believers
Cécile Guerin for Wired UK:
As a yoga teacher in my spare time, I’m part of an online community of wellness enthusiasts. But in my day job, as a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, I monitor the spread of online disinformation and conspiracy theories.
I had always thought of those two interests not only as separate, but opposite – my yoga practice and interest in meditation was an antidote to the intensely political nature of my work, a form of escapism from the news cycle. But over the last year, the lines have become blurred.
When I first started working on misinformation in news, I was focusing on science news. Most of the experts I spoke with at the University of Cambridge were looking into misinformation and conspiracy theories through a political lens. Whether its misinformation about immigration, Islam or the Illuminati, it’s usually presented like this: “Remainers are less likely than Brexiters to believe in the unfounded theory that…” or “Trump supporters are more likely to think that the government is deliberately hiding the truth about…”
And I would say, “But what about anti-vaxxers? What about ‘natural’ cancer cures?” And now, here we are, finally.
Also on my radar:
Artist Bani Haykal on Twitter demonstrated that while the Malay language has no gendered pronouns, Google Translate assigns the gender to the pronoun ‘dia’ (s/he) depending on the occupation or activity:
Author Hanna Alkaf added that if you change ‘dia’ to ‘beliau,’ which is an honorific s/he term for someone highly respected or of high status, Google Translate assigns the male pronoun:
What I read, watch and listen to…
I’m reading Pysche a lot lately, for instance, about the history of humiliation or how to be angry.
I’m watching It’s A Sin, from the man behind the brilliantly made Years and Years, Russell T Davies.
Chart of the week
From the February 2021 study, False Accusation: The Unfounded Claim that Social Media Companies Censor Conservatives, by Paul Barrett and J. Grant Sims of NYU: