This weeks program was a video of Jevin West, Director, Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington as well as an Associated Professor talking about the medium of misinformation. The video has been edited to conform to our meeting timeframe. The video emphasizes how the media in general distorts the news while still being accurate it is misleading.
On June 23, Center for an Informed Public director Jevin West, an associate professor in the University of Washington Information School, participated in the 2021 American Library Association annual meeting for a virtual Meet the Author event where he discussed the work of the CIP and Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World, the August 2020 book he co-authored with UW Department of Biology professor and CIP faculty member Carl Bergstrom.
He talked about Hanlon's razor: Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence. Never ascribe to incompetence what could be an understandable mistake. Data can be manipulated and misinformation can travel through data and be represented. Another example was the Art of Skepticism in a Data-Drive World. What is BS. West describes BS which involves language, statistical figures, data graphics, and other forms of presentation intended to impress, overwhelm or persuade-presented with blatant disregard for truth, logical coherence or what information is actually being conveyed.
There was so much information to absorb that you can go to the following meeting link to view the video: https://youtu.be/XAKGEweGycM or go to our club's YouTube page.