Disinformation
Objective information is often found by looking deep into a subject using science and a microscope. The issue with this is the data points which are collected and published behind paywalls and then interpreted by bias institutions and regurgitated as news. With the advent its a common fallacy but an argument flat earthers always come up with is have you ever seen the world as a sphere? There are under 1,000 people on earth[1] who have done so however the majority of the earth populace believe the earth to be a sphere, so how did they come to this conclusion?
The human mind has evolved heuristics which allow weighting of information based upon its perceived authority. For instance, story of the BOY who cried wolf, might have ended differently if the protagonist was a middle aged doctor in a lab coat[2]. We have negative weighting to younger people when exchanging information, it seems the older a person is the more wisdom and weight. This may have made sense during the pre-internet era as information was less dynamic, however today longevity is more of a hindrance than a benefit as it have been found that neuroplasticity which is of the utmost importance during crisis wanes with age.
Irregardless of perceived authority, the flat earth conspiracy theorist has a point, how do you know information is from a non bias source without being able to check the source yourself. This is where the open information age has become indispensable.
Sci-Hub
A huge amount of science is done every year in universities and laboratories around the world scientists unlike designers do not hide their secrets behind closed doors as they welcome criticism in the form of peer review. As such scientific papers are published behind a public paywall and are only free to university boffins. The issue with this is that the majority of scientists in the world live outside of the Western university structure and cannot access this raw data as it is placed behind a corporate paywalls maintained by corporates such as:
- Academic Press (Elsevier)
- Cambridge University Press
- Oxford University Press
- Routledge. Sage Publications
- University of Chicago Press In short, Aaron Schwartz a co creator of Reddit
References
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_travelers_by_nationality#:~:text=5%20Notes-,Statistics,according%20to%20the%20American%20definition.
- ↑ Chaput de Saintonge DM, Herxheimer A. Harmessing placebo effects in health care. Lancet. 1994;344:995–8. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]