{"subjects": ["Philosophy", "Skepticism", "Critial thinking", "Study and teaching", "Data Accuracy", "Trust", "Big Data", "Data Analysis", "Dissent and Disputes", "PSYCHOLOGY / Applied Psychology", "Critical thinking", "Data mining", "Statistical methods", "Reasoning"], "key": "/works/OL21102663W", "title": "Calling Bullshit", "authors": [{"author": {"key": "/authors/OL6995837A"}, "type": {"key": "/type/author_role"}}, {"author": {"key": "/authors/OL8076151A"}, "type": {"key": "/type/author_role"}}], "type": {"key": "/type/work"}, "covers": [10327443], "links": [{"title": "Calling Bullshit Website", "url": "https://www.callingbullshit.org/", "type": {"key": "/type/link"}}, {"title": "Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data on UW iSchool\u2019s YouTube Channel", "url": "https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPnZfvKID1Sje5jWxt-4CSZD7bUI4gSPS", "type": {"key": "/type/link"}}], "excerpts": [{"excerpt": "THE WORLD IS AWASH WITH bullshit, and we\u2019re drowning in it.\r\n\r\nPoliticians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Silicon Valley startups elevate bullshit to high art. Colleges and universities reward bullshit over analytic thought. The majority of administrative activity seems to be little more than a sophisticated exercise in the combinatorial reassembly of bullshit. Advertisers wink conspiratorially and invite us to join them in seeing through all the bullshit. We wink back\u2014but in doing so drop our guard and fall for the second-order bullshit they are shoveling at us. Bullshit pollutes our world by misleading people about specific issues, and it undermines our ability to trust information in general. However modest, this book is our attempt to fight back.", "pages": "xi", "author": {"key": "/people/faraixyz"}, "comment": "Outlines just how much bs is in the world."}], "description": {"type": "/type/text", "value": "Bullshit isn\u2019t what it used to be. Now, two science professors give us the tools to dismantle misinformation and think clearly in a world of fake news and bad data.\r\n  \r\nMisinformation, disinformation, and fake news abound and it\u2019s increasingly difficult to know what\u2019s true. Our media environment has become hyperpartisan. Science is conducted by press release. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. We are fairly well equipped to spot the sort of old-school bullshit that is based in fancy rhetoric and weasel words, but most of us don\u2019t feel qualified to challenge the avalanche of new-school bullshit presented in the language of math, science, or statistics. In Calling Bullshit, Professors Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West give us a set of powerful tools to cut through the most intimidating data. \r\n\r\nYou don\u2019t need a lot of technical expertise to call out problems with data. Are the numbers or results too good or too dramatic to be true? Is the claim comparing like with like? Is it confirming your personal bias? Drawing on a deep well of expertise in statistics and computational biology, Bergstrom and West exuberantly unpack examples of selection bias and muddled data visualization, distinguish between correlation and causation, and examine the susceptibility of science to modern bullshit. \r\n\r\nWe have always needed people who call bullshit when necessary, whether within a circle of friends, a community of scholars, or the citizenry of a nation. Now that bullshit has evolved, we need to relearn the art of skepticism."}, "latest_revision": 6, "revision": 6, "created": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2020-08-04T15:31:29.162724"}, "last_modified": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2025-05-17T04:36:32.242175"}}