Hacker News Reader

Comment by facepalm | Hacker News Reader

I don't know what is true, but with the media, with some experience, you can see signs. For example they often leave out parts of the story. If you really think about it, you notice the story has holes and you start wondering what they left out.

Also, they usually have an agenda, and you'll notice how all the facts presented somehow highlight that agenda.

Also, simply try to think about all the ways the story could be wrong, or that would disprove the assumption. Are theses things addressed in the story? If not, they probably don't have an interest in conveying the truth. An article usually works by shining a light on certain aspects of an event. Try to mentally shine the light on other aspects.

Essentially, don't fall for "proof by anecdote". If they present you with a sob-story of somebody to relate to, try to generalize and ask yourself if it is still true.

View on HN

>I don't know what is true, but with the media, with some experience, you can see signs.

What experience do you have that differs from typical people which allows you to make these judgements?

How are you determining that this isn't just your own confirmation bias?

I didn't say I differ from typical people. Everybody could see these signs.

But if you want: I am a trained mathematician, so I am trained in identifying the root assumptions of problems.

I am aware of the typical ways to lie with statistics. There are books about that, everybody can and SHOULD read those. For example choosing certain time intervals, making charts not start from zero to inflate a trend, picking the aspect that best supports your claim (for example, either use relative growth or absolute growth when describing an issue - one more murder in a town can mean "crime incidents increased by one" or "crime incidents increased by 100%"). Playing with proportions, like drawing circles for comparisons and using diameter (instead of area) to correspond to the values you want to show. And so on - there are many possibilities, and they are all being used.

So, for example, if I see a chart depicting some trend over a period of time, my immediate instinct is to ask "what would it look like if the chart would start one year earlier?".

Also, I think fake news might have become a topic these days because people also get their information from social media. They often know about aspects that an article doesn't mention, so they are more often able to identify articles as fake news.

Overall, there is just one thing you have to do: try remain skeptic at all times. "Bend over backwards" as Feynman put it to disprove your own assumptions.

Nothing of that is specific to me, and it is not complicated. You just have to be willing to challenge your assumptions.

For starters, I would recommend reading those books on how to lie with statistics, and your essential Feynman. And get your news from multiple sources and compare them.

If everybody could see the signs wouldn't that make your post vacuous?

I don't know what your problem is? Somebody asked for how to spot fake news or find the truth, I answered. Just because everybody could look for certain signs, doesn't mean everybody does.

Everybody can learn about certain signs. If the person asking already knew them all, why did they ask? Then their question was vacuous, not my reply. Just because a question has an obvious answer, the answer is vacuous? What is going on in your mind? What are you driving at?

Have you ever read one of those books about how to lie with statistics? You really, really should.

The question you were responding to was about people bought up in an environment where they had no access to other sources of knowledge. I think a response that suggests that everybody ought to know how to determine fact from fiction is in that context a little heartless.

Thanks for the recommendation on reading a book about stats - which would you recommend? I already work on statistical models in my job and would probably get in trouble if they didn't lead to tangible results so I might even have the book on hand.

You working on statistical models is a scary thought, given that you seemed unable to understand my criticism of my primitive analysis of lofeatgoogle.

I read a book in German (specifically on how to lie with statistics), don't know which ones to recommend in English. There is the obvious one with the name "how to lie with statistics", but it is very old. Otoh, available for free (but I haven't read it).

Feynman, too, don't forget about Feynman. http://www.ar-tiste.com/feynman-on-honesty.html

Thinking, Fast and Slow was a lot about bias, but not sure if it really gets the point across effectively.

Seeing how you interpret my comments, maybe starting with statistics is actually backwards. Perhaps start with language and communication first? Sorry if my comment sounds mean, but it really seems a bit crazy how you try to bend my comments into something outrageous.

Your claims, that the lifeatgoogle twitter showed a bias towards women and PoCs that indicated google wasn't interested in hiring men, aren't the topic that's being communicated in this thread.

I didn't say they were.

Why did you bring it up then?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com