In April of this year, Jon Roozenbeek and Sander van der Linden published a book entitled The Psychology of Misinformation with the Cambridge University Press. It is short, lucid and one-eyed – despite having two authors. Since this book is state-of-the-art on the ‘misinformation’ front I thought I’d bring a sceptical pair of eyes to bear on it. They say they like scepticism, within limits. So I thought I’d try the unlimited sort.
The book is academic. It pretends to objectivity. It is polite and reasonable and ‘evidenced’, and sometimes facetious in a way that is meant to be charming. But it is one of those devilish books which does the opposite of what it claims to do. It claims to be understanding and hence opposing misinformation: in fact, it is a contribution to the making of a misinformation society. Now, I am not a psychologist. Usually, academic book reviews are written by fellow scholars, members of the same “echo chamber” (to use words used by our authors), subject to the same “filter bubbles” (to use other words they use). But I’d like to see a revival of 19th-century book reviewing, in which anyone can wade in on anything and smite it with a stave or impale it on a hook. This is one such short attempt.
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Same Harvard that fired Professor of Medicine Martin Kulldorff for co-authoring the Great Barrington Declaration…
https://www.city-journal.org/article/harvard-tramples-the-truth
“…I am no longer a professor of medicine at Harvard. The Harvard motto is Veritas, Latin for truth. But, as I discovered, truth can get you fired.”
For the record, Dr Kulldorff is now at Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom.
Touché Harvard – Harvard’s loss is Hillsdale’s gain.
Trump is gradually cutting off the money supplies. Once reality hits,the rats will be turning on each other and the minority interests fighting amongst themselves.
If you argue that Trump is doing his best to reverse the Obamafication of America then cutting off the supply of support at the nest is an effective way of killing what has become a parasitical culture.
To me universities are a system of selection, picking out from the mass of population the people who will serve as the cadres and intelligentsia of the establishment.
The Ivy League schools, Oxford, Cambridge, SciencePo, etc.. are there to pick out and prepare those who might serve at the very top.
Obviously it’s not a perfect system. Some people slip through and use it for their own purposes.
Trump, to his credit, taking a chainsaw to the entire system. Changing how the cadres of the future are indoctrinated is pretty important.
I agree, it does seem that they have been infiltrated by the left who have manipulated education to their own ends, they have loaded the system with dumbed down subjects which in reality appear to be better served as vocational training.
It does appear that lefty thinking has seeped into all areas of life. Academic freedom is the most important aspect of education for without it we will descend into the darkness of totalitarian rule. If we can’t rely on academics to freely go about their business within a lawful framework then we are lost.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel. I think many scientists have been hiding behind dogmatic ideologies and have become fearful of losing their livelihoods, this seems to be coming to an end and I watch the Hillsdale channel on Youtube and would recommend it to anyone who wants to listen to various subjects.I generalise by necessity so it may be worth looking up Hillsdale and judge for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/@hillsdalecollege
You need to differentiate between Natural Scientists, while not perfect, do keep their mistakes away from the fabric of society, and Social Scientists, who often wander into the unsocial, with some encamping there.
Yes, you make a good point, but If you check out Hillsdale, many of the vids are interviews and discussion with people studying Natural sciences who have been sidelined, or simply ignored by various bodies for studying subjects that contravene “accepted” science. It’s a wealth of information that is slowly coming to the forefront. Quantum physics, consciousness, brain function and soon.
I am acquainted with the college, and their courses. The problem is what to do about the other ‘institutions of higher learning’. I see it as Oratory beats Wisdom, but even the Ancient Greeks knew that, though it has morphed into a battle of Narratives. But that is the problem, even though everyone has a valid view point, on every subject, it would help if at least some of the subject under discussion was understood beforehand, by the participants voicing opinions, and not questions. It leads to the problem of mistaking Science, a mode of enquiry, with The Science, handled down to the Deplorables, who are expected to accept it, without question.
I haven’t yet had ‘Climate Denier’ tattooed on my forehead (so that my children and grandchildren will know just how evil I have been), so all is not lost.
On the subject of Quantum Physics, Jacob Barandes is ploughing a new furrow, with Stocastic Processes. If I could understand it, I could pass comment on it!
If universities are unfree then the people will also be unfree. Most interesting article confirming this contemporary experience of a disrupted society.
“The intellectually least disordered part of any university is the natural scientific side.” But “they [scientists] do not take great interest in the university as a whole”.
What a coincidence!
And then I see the author is a ‘Professor in the Department of Political Science’.
Political Science?
Isn’t that where universities have gone wrong: confusing Science, a mode of enquiry, with the aspirations of the confused?
Universities in general, particularly Humanities Departments, have always been somewhat left-leaning in their outlook. “Hard Science” Departments like those of Mathematics, Engineering and Pure Sciences perhaps more objective in their doctrine.
Lately, the “Hard Sciences” have become more and more infiltrated by MadLeft thinking with the result that we are where we are today, and it has taken a Court judgement to advocate on the nature of a woman, for example.
This infiltration has led to the politicisation of science (which is not exclusively a new phenomenon, consider the Nazis and their race “studies”).
It is however counter-productive, science needs to be absolutely objective and free from external bias to be of value. Mathematics and Physics are rigid and exist within strict rules – and any attempt to deviate from that leads to failure on various scales (as we are also contemporary witnesses to).
Although I agree in many ways I think that physics are now considered perhaps too rigid to explain recent scientific discoveries. I watched a video yesterday of an interview of Federico Faggin, who has a respected reputation in semiconductors. He puts forward ideas that quantum physics can’t be explained by current mathematical models and that contemporary physicists try to fit the latest findings using methods that can no longer explain the quantum world. He points out that the subject of quantum entanglement was not treated seriously because Einstein thought it was wrong. He delves into consciousness, which in many ways coincides with studies by Iain McGilchrist and Rupert Sheldrake.
So whether you agree or not, these people should be listened to but unfortunately in many ways some of them are sidelined. But just consider the feud between Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke of the way people like RobertOppenheimer were treated and then consider that climate scientists insanely say that science is settled and they are backed by the main stream media and governments across the world.
I see it as our duty to question everything and listen to all opposing views, but of course people are free to disagree as long as they do so openly and not in the way we have experienced in the past 30(at least) years. But as Faggin says, “Free will exists”.
Go for it, Donald!
I started “Uni” in 1999. After six months, I had walked out. Waste of time and money. Went and learned real skills on the job and kept up learning German in the meantime.
It was the same for my peers, but most of them went along to get along (except they didn’t and just incurred a load of student debt, credit card debt and an unhealthy sense of entitlement and superiority.
This correction (fingers crossed) is well overdue. May it flow over to the UK.
“[G]roundbreaking innovations”? Garber writes in garbled American English. It makes as much sense as, “lived experience”. I wonder how he got the job; on his knees perhaps.
See The New Idea of a University too, by Duke Maskell and Ian Robinson. Doesn’t so much foretell the death of the university as describe the condition of the corpse (which hasn’t improved in the 24 years since the book was published).