6 ms·

Carl Bergstrom on data manipulation, fake news,& using science as a lie detector

39 points by xingyzt 6y ago

etangent 6y ago
This has always been the case, not sure why this is news.
- Carioca 6y ago
  It's news because his book is being launched now. Also, he has been a “bellwether” of sorts to science news during the pandemic
- sabertoothed 6y ago
  Their lecture series was pretty good: https://www.callingbullshit.org/videos.html https://www.callingbullshit.org/videos.html
- amelius 6y ago
  It would be news if they quantified it. Like: 1% of people use data to bullshit Or like: 99% of people use data to bullshit But perhaps they are simply afraid to provide the actual data because people will use it to bullshit ...
joshgel 6y ago
I find that in office politics, once data is presented, it becomes the 'facts'. (Or at least the narrative that gets promulgated forward.) It's incredibly challenging to change the 'facts'/narrative. Often because of the challenge in demonstrating the others' data are false or show a misleading picture. I think this is somewhat like convincing people that believed the early studies on hydroxychloroquine. A narrative was built and despite multiple studies and RCTs, it continues in many circles. If the initial data showed a different picture, I have a hard time imagining the on-going challenge of fighting this disinformation battle. (it would have been another).
- Camillo 6y ago
  > It's incredibly challenging to change the 'facts'/narrative. It's incredibly easy if you control the narrative factories. For example, consider the sudden switch from "masks don't work unless they're N95, you need an MD to put one on correctly, and if you buy them you're an egotistical asshole who's putting our medical workers in danger" to "even plain cloth masks are useful, everyone must wear one at all times, and if you didn't buy one you're an egotistical asshole who's putting everyone in danger" earlier this year. Took less than a week. I was pro-mask since before the narrative switch, but it would be completely irresponsible to sit back and say "oh well, good on them for correcting themselves, that's how science works after all". That was a real "we've always been at war with Eastasia" moment: a naked exercise of power, which could be used just as easily to switch from a true narrative to a false one, or from one lie to another.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    AIUI N95 masks give you some protection against others who are emitting the virus whereas a simple cloth mask catches wet aerosolised particles in the 0.1 seconds they take to dry up, meaning that they protect other people from you. I agree the switch occurred and surely things should have been handled better, but your post comes across as weirdly paranoid.
    - a1369209993 6y ago
      AIUI, your understanding is true, but that's not the narrative the overwhelming majority of people I've encountered in real life were following, before or after. I don't consider "We have had both ongoing hostilities and peace talks with both Eurasia and Eastasia for the entire time Oceania has existed.", even if true, to be a refutation of the claim that the narrative switched to "we've always been at war with Eastasia".
      - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        Can you stop with the 1984 eurasia stuff. So plainly put, what is "narrative the overwhelming majority of people [you've] encountered"? And what's it got to do with masks that may slow covid?
perl4ever 6y ago
That's why they call it "data" and not "information".
raphlinus 6y ago
Carl Bergstrom is one of my favorite Twitter follows, especially on topics that are pushed by seemingly legit sources (including peer-reviewed publications) but contain serious flaws in reasoning. The course sounds amazing, and I'm sure the book is good as well.
Shoop 6y ago
@dang: Could we get a title change? Maybe "Carl Bergstrom on data manipulation, fake news, and the importance of using science as a lie detector"
- xingyzt 6y ago
  Subtitle is 20 characters too long. I truncated it a bit.
nkingsy 6y ago
He seems not to expect change in the "populist" element in the current media landscape. The only policy opinions/spitballs I read in the interview were banning political advertising on social media and public support for independent journalism, and he didn't give the impression that he thought either would go very far. It seems like paradigm shifts happen more often than we think. They always surprise me, at least (BLM, same sex marriage, legalized pot in the US). Reading between the lines, I think he's saying that barring a paradigm shift, this new kind of "anti-democratic populism" is going to be around for a while.
pmdulaney 6y ago
"If some guy rolls in with a fancy algorithm telling you someone is a criminal using facial features, you need to be able to say that is nuts." OK, maybe. But I think that it is just as often political correctness as science that allows one to dismiss such assertions out of hand. As much, as a gentile, I would like to be able to dismiss "The Jews really are smarter than the rest of us" out of hand, some unpopular assertions may in fact be true. And I think truth has to come before other considerations. (Though it may be best not to make such assertions at all if there's not a good reason to.) Overall, though, I really liked what Bergstrom had to say. What he had to say about mockery being unproductive was some practical wisdom.
- a1369209993 6y ago
  It's not that they are, in fact, not a criminal. That's probably true, since unless you're using a deeply fucked up juridiction's definition of criminal, most people aren't criminals, but that's not the point. What's nuts is treating the claims of a algorithm you don't understand as evidence that someone is a criminal, rather than as unsubstantiated hearsay the way you would if a human made such a claim.
  - pmdulaney 6y ago
    If Bergstrom's point is that one shouldn't believe claims just because someone asserts them, then yes, that's true. But I would say that the set of assertions for which one is justified in rejecting them out of hand is perhaps smaller than he is suggesting. For example, there was fake news recently in which the Gates Foundation was said to be inserting subcutaneous chips into folks who had received vaccines. It turned out to be untrue, but not obviously so. The technology exists and if not abused it could be an inexpensive and effective form of record keeping.
    - a1369209993 6y ago
      > rejecting them out of hand I may have missed it, but I don't see TFA actually arguing for that at all. > one shouldn't believe claims just because someone [or something] asserts them Seems to be the overall point. If some guy rolls in with a paranoid schizophrenic telling you someone is a criminal using facial features, you need to be able to say that is nuts.
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
My personal motto in dealing with this is: Stressen, Meutern, Flegeln! as a juxtaposition of Messen, Steuern, Regeln which is German for [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentation_and_control_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentation_and_control_en... The battle for hearts and minds [2] https://ww1.habsburger.net/en/chapters/battle-hearts-and-minds https://ww1.habsburger.net/en/chapters/battle-hearts-and-min... is nothing new, now fought by cybernetic means. [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics Considering this, as a precaution to not having ones strings pulled by mechanisms of media, regardless of state- or non-state actors in the [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy I implented a mental default-deny for pull requests in the spirit of [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Not_Being_Governed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Not_Being_Governed Stressen as in stress back if someone/thing is stressing you. By Meutern as in mutiny. And lastly by Flegeln as in being a Yahoo, Redneck, Hick, Hool, Honk, Punk etc. about it. (Edit: Vanishing fast into the off, yelling Geronimo Banzai!)
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  That is my facility for managing systems of oppression.

39 points by xingyzt 6y ago

etangent 6y ago

This has always been the case, not sure why this is news.

Carioca 6y ago
It's news because his book is being launched now. Also, he has been a “bellwether” of sorts to science news during the pandemic
sabertoothed 6y ago
Their lecture series was pretty good: https://www.callingbullshit.org/videos.html https://www.callingbullshit.org/videos.html
amelius 6y ago
It would be news if they quantified it. Like: 1% of people use data to bullshit Or like: 99% of people use data to bullshit But perhaps they are simply afraid to provide the actual data because people will use it to bullshit ...

joshgel 6y ago

I find that in office politics, once data is presented, it becomes the 'facts'. (Or at least the narrative that gets promulgated forward.) It's incredibly challenging to change the 'facts'/narrative. Often because of the challenge in demonstrating the others' data are false or show a misleading picture. I think this is somewhat like convincing people that believed the early studies on hydroxychloroquine. A narrative was built and despite multiple studies and RCTs, it continues in many circles. If the initial data showed a different picture, I have a hard time imagining the on-going challenge of fighting this disinformation battle. (it would have been another).

Camillo 6y ago
> It's incredibly challenging to change the 'facts'/narrative. It's incredibly easy if you control the narrative factories. For example, consider the sudden switch from "masks don't work unless they're N95, you need an MD to put one on correctly, and if you buy them you're an egotistical asshole who's putting our medical workers in danger" to "even plain cloth masks are useful, everyone must wear one at all times, and if you didn't buy one you're an egotistical asshole who's putting everyone in danger" earlier this year. Took less than a week. I was pro-mask since before the narrative switch, but it would be completely irresponsible to sit back and say "oh well, good on them for correcting themselves, that's how science works after all". That was a real "we've always been at war with Eastasia" moment: a naked exercise of power, which could be used just as easily to switch from a true narrative to a false one, or from one lie to another.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  AIUI N95 masks give you some protection against others who are emitting the virus whereas a simple cloth mask catches wet aerosolised particles in the 0.1 seconds they take to dry up, meaning that they protect other people from you. I agree the switch occurred and surely things should have been handled better, but your post comes across as weirdly paranoid.
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    AIUI, your understanding is true, but that's not the narrative the overwhelming majority of people I've encountered in real life were following, before or after. I don't consider "We have had both ongoing hostilities and peace talks with both Eurasia and Eastasia for the entire time Oceania has existed.", even if true, to be a refutation of the claim that the narrative switched to "we've always been at war with Eastasia".
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      Can you stop with the 1984 eurasia stuff. So plainly put, what is "narrative the overwhelming majority of people [you've] encountered"? And what's it got to do with masks that may slow covid?

perl4ever 6y ago

That's why they call it "data" and not "information".

raphlinus 6y ago

Carl Bergstrom is one of my favorite Twitter follows, especially on topics that are pushed by seemingly legit sources (including peer-reviewed publications) but contain serious flaws in reasoning. The course sounds amazing, and I'm sure the book is good as well.

Shoop 6y ago

@dang: Could we get a title change? Maybe "Carl Bergstrom on data manipulation, fake news, and the importance of using science as a lie detector"

xingyzt 6y ago
Subtitle is 20 characters too long. I truncated it a bit.

nkingsy 6y ago

He seems not to expect change in the "populist" element in the current media landscape. The only policy opinions/spitballs I read in the interview were banning political advertising on social media and public support for independent journalism, and he didn't give the impression that he thought either would go very far. It seems like paradigm shifts happen more often than we think. They always surprise me, at least (BLM, same sex marriage, legalized pot in the US). Reading between the lines, I think he's saying that barring a paradigm shift, this new kind of "anti-democratic populism" is going to be around for a while.

pmdulaney 6y ago

"If some guy rolls in with a fancy algorithm telling you someone is a criminal using facial features, you need to be able to say that is nuts." OK, maybe. But I think that it is just as often political correctness as science that allows one to dismiss such assertions out of hand. As much, as a gentile, I would like to be able to dismiss "The Jews really are smarter than the rest of us" out of hand, some unpopular assertions may in fact be true. And I think truth has to come before other considerations. (Though it may be best not to make such assertions at all if there's not a good reason to.) Overall, though, I really liked what Bergstrom had to say. What he had to say about mockery being unproductive was some practical wisdom.

a1369209993 6y ago
It's not that they are, in fact, not a criminal. That's probably true, since unless you're using a deeply fucked up juridiction's definition of criminal, most people aren't criminals, but that's not the point. What's nuts is treating the claims of a algorithm you don't understand as evidence that someone is a criminal, rather than as unsubstantiated hearsay the way you would if a human made such a claim.
- pmdulaney 6y ago
  If Bergstrom's point is that one shouldn't believe claims just because someone asserts them, then yes, that's true. But I would say that the set of assertions for which one is justified in rejecting them out of hand is perhaps smaller than he is suggesting. For example, there was fake news recently in which the Gates Foundation was said to be inserting subcutaneous chips into folks who had received vaccines. It turned out to be untrue, but not obviously so. The technology exists and if not abused it could be an inexpensive and effective form of record keeping.
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    > rejecting them out of hand I may have missed it, but I don't see TFA actually arguing for that at all. > one shouldn't believe claims just because someone [or something] asserts them Seems to be the overall point. If some guy rolls in with a paranoid schizophrenic telling you someone is a criminal using facial features, you need to be able to say that is nuts.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago

My personal motto in dealing with this is: Stressen, Meutern, Flegeln! as a juxtaposition of Messen, Steuern, Regeln which is German for [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentation_and_control_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentation_and_control_en... The battle for hearts and minds [2] https://ww1.habsburger.net/en/chapters/battle-hearts-and-minds https://ww1.habsburger.net/en/chapters/battle-hearts-and-min... is nothing new, now fought by cybernetic means. [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics Considering this, as a precaution to not having ones strings pulled by mechanisms of media, regardless of state- or non-state actors in the [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy I implented a mental default-deny for pull requests in the spirit of [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Not_Being_Governed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Not_Being_Governed Stressen as in stress back if someone/thing is stressing you. By Meutern as in mutiny. And lastly by Flegeln as in being a Yahoo, Redneck, Hick, Hool, Honk, Punk etc. about it. (Edit: Vanishing fast into the off, yelling Geronimo Banzai!)

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
That is my facility for managing systems of oppression.