{"id":37785,"date":"2019-07-13T08:36:16","date_gmt":"2019-07-13T08:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/?p=37785"},"modified":"2019-07-13T08:44:27","modified_gmt":"2019-07-13T08:44:27","slug":"on-crying-wolf-and-confirmation-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2019\/07\/13\/on-crying-wolf-and-confirmation-bias\/","title":{"rendered":"On crying wolf and confirmation bias"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve written about this before: circulation on social media of information which is false &#8211; as in this piece on <a href=\"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2016\/02\/11\/sermon-on-truth\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>gun control and homophobia<\/strong><\/a> &#8211; or incorrectly understood &#8211; as in this on <a href=\"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2018\/07\/11\/syria-our-standards-and-theirs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Syria<\/strong> <\/a>&#8211; to prop up views I broadly share.<\/p>\n<p>Truth matters, for practical as well as ethical reasons. For pessimists like me, fighting against what seem insuperable odds of entrenched power and mass credulity, it&#8217;s all we have.<\/p>\n<p>So when I found, a few minutes ago, a link to <a href=\"https:\/\/worldnewsdailyreport.com\/kentucky-police-shoot-white-coal-miner-5-times-thinking-he-was-black\/?fbclid=IwAR3xGvCXccmokUIUFBge9wajsFwosbM0xyCnhsTGTp7ifJT2tMIFNCVjoDI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>this dangerous nonsense<\/strong><\/a> on the so-called World News Daily Report, I was none too happy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/kentucky-cop-shooting-spoof.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-37786\" src=\"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/kentucky-cop-shooting-spoof.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"603\" height=\"1160\" srcset=\"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/kentucky-cop-shooting-spoof.jpg 603w, https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/kentucky-cop-shooting-spoof-156x300.jpg 156w, https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/kentucky-cop-shooting-spoof-532x1024.jpg 532w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 603px) 100vw, 603px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve written about this before: circulation on social media of information which is false &#8211; as in this piece on gun control and homophobia &#8211; or incorrectly understood &#8211; as in this on Syria &#8211; to prop up views I &#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2019\/07\/13\/on-crying-wolf-and-confirmation-bias\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}