A talk about critical thinking and information literacy, presented at UC San Francisco on November 21, 2016.

1. How to Think, How to
Be
Presented at UC San Francisco
Marcus A Banks
November 21, 2016

2. Topic
General principles of critical
evaluation of sources, which
apply to everything from wiki
entries to journal articles to
news stories to textbooks.

3. Premise
More
Nobl
e
Less
Noble
Human Motivation

4. Call to Action
Be a more
thoughtful
reader,
watcher
and
listener.

5. Facts and Erroneous Information

6. Settled Facts (A Partial
List)
2 + 2 = 4
Yellow and Blue Make Green
There are 180 degrees in a triangle
A square is a rectangle, a rectangle is not
a square

7. Typology of
Erroneous Information
Overstatement
Mis-statement
Lies

8. Overstatement:
Passion

9. D. Robert Worley, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/d-robert-worley/conservatives-progressives_b_1879200.html

10. Wayne Besen, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wayne-besen/in-defense-of-liberalism_b_116941.html

11. Overstatement: Passion
These are strongly held claims, honorably made.
Rhetorical over-reach occurs, but without a
conscious attempt to evade, mislead or deceive.
Signs of a passionate overstater:
They have argued the same points the same
way for many years
They frequently use phrases such as “well,
we’re all entitled to our opinion” and “guess
we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

12. Mis-statement:
Bad Incentives

13. Scientific Studies with John
Oliver

14. Mis-statement: Bad
Incentives
Novelty and Bold
Claims
Publish or Perish
Scholarly
Publishing
Errors
or
Fraud
in
Articles
Retraction of
Scientific
Papershttp://retractionwatch.com/

15. Misconduct accounts for the majority of the
retracted scientific publication. doi:
10.1073/pnas.1212247109
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/42/17028.full.pdf?with-ds=yes

16. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/42/17028.full.pdf?with-ds=yes
Misconduct accounts for the majority of the
retracted scientific publications. doi:
10.1073/pnas.1212247109

17. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/42/17028.full.pdf?with-ds=yes
Misconduct accounts for the majority of the
retracted scientific publications. doi:
10.1073/pnas.1212247109

18. Mis-Statement: Bad
Incentives
More disturbing than the excesses of passionate
overstatement
An active intent to deceive
Explainable – not justified ethically – as the
consequence of perverse incentives behind
academic advancement
Change those incentives, change the behavior

19. Lies: Bad
Character

20. Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/viral-fake-election-news-outperformed-real-news-on-
facebook?utm_term=.lcmRm0pBz#.lhV04Gx82

21. Source: http://bzfd.it/2fKLQzZ
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/viral-fake-election-news-outperformed-real-news-on-
facebook?utm_term=.lcmRm0pBz#.lhV04Gx82

22. Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/viral-fake-election-news-outperformed-real-news-on-
facebook?utm_term=.lcmRm0pBz#.lhV04Gx82

23. Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/partisan-fb-pages-
analysis?utm_term=.ge1amjXW1#.oqoKRL7W3

24. Lies: Bad Character
An active intent to defame and deceive
Not reversible by shifting incentives
Responses by shaming are futile, as this entire
mode is shameless

25. Why Lies Work
Confirmation Bias: We all gravitate
toward information that confirms our pre-
conceptions, and recoil from information
that challenges our ideas
System 1 Thinking (Daniel Kahneman):
The mind generally makes rapid decisions
on the basis of limited and/or false
information

26. Be a more
thoughtful
reader,
watcher
and
listener.
How to Think, How to Be

27. How to Think, How to Be
Proactively call on System 2 Thinking.
The conscious mind that actively
challenges our mental short cuts and
lazy thinking. Hard but invigorating
work.
Support good and engaging
journalism.
Trust Project: http://thetrustproject.org/

28. Do not despair.
The Internet is still just a baby, so
the infantile behavior we see
online is not so surprising. The
Web remains the greatest tool for
knowledge creation and sharing
ever known.
We can help it grow

29. Thank You!