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For example, this whole article just should not exist: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/15/facebook-posts/keystone-xl-suspension-probably-wont-bo

by _dain_ 5y ago

For example, this whole article just should not exist: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/15/facebook-posts/keystone-xl-suspension-probably-wont-boost-oil-pri/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/15/facebook-p... There is a whole genre of "fact-check" articles of the form: "X says that Y will cause Z to happen. Here's why experts say that's wrong." i.e. "fact-checking" a prediction about something that will happen in the future. Unless you're clairvoyant, that isn't a fact-check because the facts literally haven't happened yet! So any rating at all is misleading. I mean yeah, maybe you could fact-check something that can be predicted with high accuracy, like whether a solar eclipse will happen. But they do it for economic and social and political issues. They just shouldn't, at all. "Fact-checking" is just clever marketing label for meta-journalism, i.e. journalism-about-journalism. It isn't some category that has magically different standards or incentives than ordinary journalism. It perplexes me that smart, skeptical people think that Snopes or Politifact are somehow free from the exact same bias-producing incentives and motivations of every other news outlet.

mrtranscendence 5y ago
When you say that "this whole article just should not exist", are you stating that predictions should never be investigated, validated, measured against the statements of experts? Or are you just quibbling that it shouldn't count as "fact checking"? The former seems silly and the latter gets a shrug from me (who cares if there's a better phrase than "fact checking").
- _dain_ 5y ago
  Of course the predictions should be investigated and validated, but only after the events have come to pass. If you're going to write something beforehand (e.g. contrasting the predictions of various experts), don't call it a fact-check, because it's not about facts, it's about opinions. Informed, educated opinions yes, but still fundamentally opinions.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    That's fairly absurd on its face. There are many important predictions to be made about medium term outcomes (say, in the 5-25 year range). If someone says "We will never develop grid-level energy storage because elves cannot fly, therefore renewable energy is hopeless", we don't have to wait one second to investigate and (in)validate this claim. If someone says "Sea level will drop by 3m within 15 years because today's cows are farting less", we do no thave to wait 15 years to investigate and (in)validate this. If someone says "Astronomical body N28291k will hit the earth at 13:45 on Dec 2nd 2037", we do not need to wait until 2037 to investigate and validate the claim. If someone says "The cost of coal will decrease by 20% over the next 10 years", when all known reserves of coal are more difficult to access than historical ones and when demand for coal appears to be dropping, we do not need to wait 10 years to investigate and (in)validate this.
    - _dain_ 5y ago
      the first two things you said are preposterous strawmen, the third I already mentioned, the fourth is wrong. you don't know what will happen in 10 years, maybe some new coal extraction technology will be invented, maybe new sources will be discovered, maybe it becomes possible to economically extract the CO2 from the smokestacks and coal becomes green and gets tons of subsidies. yeah it's unlikely, but it's not something you can "fact-check". it does violence to the meaning of the term. imagine telling someone ten years ago that oil prices would go negative, which they did last year. and apart from all of this, for every example you can give me of an obvious black-and-white issue where you really could fact-check it 10 years in advance, there will be 99 others where it's really not so clear-cut, but partisans want there to be fact-checker approved talking points for their side. and the market will fill this demand. for subjects outside your domain-expertise, good luck telling the difference.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        > yeah it's unlikely, but it's not something you can "fact-check". it does violence to the meaning of the term. One of the points of fact-checking is to point out to "yeah, it's unlikely" to people who would not otherwise know. Lots of claims are made about stuff, in particular climate change and energy supplies, that completely fall into the "yeah, it's unlikely" zone, and yet most ordinary readers and viewers would not know this. It's always going to be in the interest of someone to say "this might happen by the year XXXX". There's generally no shortage of black-swan boosterism. Having someone step who actually knows the field step in and point out that yes, it might happen but it almost certainly will not is of incredible value. Your response reminds me of the situation in the current satirical movie "Don't Look Up", where because the probability of an asteroid colliding with earth is only 99.7%, not 100%, the fictional US president decides it's OK to "sit tight and assess". I mean, sure it could miss, and *"yeah, it's unlikely but...."
- ErikVandeWater 5y ago
  Calling it a fact check (even implicitly) causes people with poor critical reading skills - to wit, almost everyone - to interpret the expert opinion as being undoubtedly true. This is a big part of the widening divide between right and left, which is a major issue.
  - markdown 5y ago
    > Calling it a fact check (even implicitly) causes people with poor critical reading skills - to wit, almost everyone - to interpret the expert opinion as being undoubtedly true. In my experience, people with poor critical reading skills don't read. Instead they just regurgitate what they heard on FOX, which is that fact check websites are a liberal scam.
    - timr 5y ago
      > In my experience, people with poor critical reading skills don't read. Instead they just regurgitate what they heard on FOX The same thing happens on the left with the New York Times. Laziness is a trait orthogonal to political party.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - jquery 5y ago
        False equivalence. Fox went to court to call themselves entertainment because of all the verifiable lies they were pushing. In court, Tucker Carlson said “no reasonable person” would believe him. New York Times standards are much higher than Fox. Are they perfect? No. But generally they are far less likely to lie to you.
        jessaustin 5y ago
        You're trolling us, right? Maddow won a nearly identical court case using a nearly identical defense. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/a-court-ruled-rachel-maddows-viewers https://greenwald.substack.com/p/a-court-ruled-rachel-maddow...
scotty79 5y ago
Predictions shouldn't exist because noone is clairvoyant.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  Clearly people can and do make predictions and sometimes those predictions are quite right - and sometimes wrong. Even a really really good predictor like Nate Silver gets things wrong. Future predictions are not fact checkable. You can argue likelihoods, present contrary evidence or whatnot but predictions are not facts, they are predictions. A good predictor gives odds to every outcome. That is not something a fact checker can respond to well.
  - scotty79 5y ago
    > Even a really really good predictor like Nate Silver gets things wrong. That's because if he doesn't use mathematical modelling and data he's only ever accidentally correct. There's no such thing as good predictor. If you don't use knowledge (and the only real knowledge comes from scientific process) you can't get your predictions better than chance. It's a combination of brief luck and "predicting" the obvious. With interesting personality you can make a good career out of predicting that dice roll will result in >1. You'll by wrong in less than 20% of cases. Being good predictor is getting popular while you are on the roll. There's nothing else going there. All predictions that don't have a form of scientific paper with clear mathematical model and ample data are just making stuff up and should be labelled as BS in all media. World doesn't need prophets.
    - vorpalhex 5y ago
      Knowledge is not a binary. The world is not a mix of "true" and "false", especially not in the realm of analyzing future outcomes. You need to not only get multiple analysis, but normalize them, give them confidence scores and then interpret them - and you may interpret them differently than their authors. You may entirely discard some. How do you get a confidence score? Sure sometimes we can analyze the history of an analysis such as with political polling where we have someone like Rasmussen who has done it for a long long time... but you still need to account for changes in their own process. If Rasmussen gets a new head data scientist tomorrow, does that alter our confidence level? "Just use math!" is about the same as saying "Just don't be wrong!". Math is a tool, not a magic 8 ball.

by _dain_ 5y ago

mrtranscendence 5y ago

When you say that "this whole article just should not exist", are you stating that predictions should never be investigated, validated, measured against the statements of experts? Or are you just quibbling that it shouldn't count as "fact checking"? The former seems silly and the latter gets a shrug from me (who cares if there's a better phrase than "fact checking").

_dain_ 5y ago
Of course the predictions should be investigated and validated, but only after the events have come to pass. If you're going to write something beforehand (e.g. contrasting the predictions of various experts), don't call it a fact-check, because it's not about facts, it's about opinions. Informed, educated opinions yes, but still fundamentally opinions.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  That's fairly absurd on its face. There are many important predictions to be made about medium term outcomes (say, in the 5-25 year range). If someone says "We will never develop grid-level energy storage because elves cannot fly, therefore renewable energy is hopeless", we don't have to wait one second to investigate and (in)validate this claim. If someone says "Sea level will drop by 3m within 15 years because today's cows are farting less", we do no thave to wait 15 years to investigate and (in)validate this. If someone says "Astronomical body N28291k will hit the earth at 13:45 on Dec 2nd 2037", we do not need to wait until 2037 to investigate and validate the claim. If someone says "The cost of coal will decrease by 20% over the next 10 years", when all known reserves of coal are more difficult to access than historical ones and when demand for coal appears to be dropping, we do not need to wait 10 years to investigate and (in)validate this.
  - _dain_ 5y ago
    the first two things you said are preposterous strawmen, the third I already mentioned, the fourth is wrong. you don't know what will happen in 10 years, maybe some new coal extraction technology will be invented, maybe new sources will be discovered, maybe it becomes possible to economically extract the CO2 from the smokestacks and coal becomes green and gets tons of subsidies. yeah it's unlikely, but it's not something you can "fact-check". it does violence to the meaning of the term. imagine telling someone ten years ago that oil prices would go negative, which they did last year. and apart from all of this, for every example you can give me of an obvious black-and-white issue where you really could fact-check it 10 years in advance, there will be 99 others where it's really not so clear-cut, but partisans want there to be fact-checker approved talking points for their side. and the market will fill this demand. for subjects outside your domain-expertise, good luck telling the difference.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      > yeah it's unlikely, but it's not something you can "fact-check". it does violence to the meaning of the term. One of the points of fact-checking is to point out to "yeah, it's unlikely" to people who would not otherwise know. Lots of claims are made about stuff, in particular climate change and energy supplies, that completely fall into the "yeah, it's unlikely" zone, and yet most ordinary readers and viewers would not know this. It's always going to be in the interest of someone to say "this might happen by the year XXXX". There's generally no shortage of black-swan boosterism. Having someone step who actually knows the field step in and point out that yes, it might happen but it almost certainly will not is of incredible value. Your response reminds me of the situation in the current satirical movie "Don't Look Up", where because the probability of an asteroid colliding with earth is only 99.7%, not 100%, the fictional US president decides it's OK to "sit tight and assess". I mean, sure it could miss, and *"yeah, it's unlikely but...."
ErikVandeWater 5y ago
Calling it a fact check (even implicitly) causes people with poor critical reading skills - to wit, almost everyone - to interpret the expert opinion as being undoubtedly true. This is a big part of the widening divide between right and left, which is a major issue.
- markdown 5y ago
  > Calling it a fact check (even implicitly) causes people with poor critical reading skills - to wit, almost everyone - to interpret the expert opinion as being undoubtedly true. In my experience, people with poor critical reading skills don't read. Instead they just regurgitate what they heard on FOX, which is that fact check websites are a liberal scam.
  - timr 5y ago
    > In my experience, people with poor critical reading skills don't read. Instead they just regurgitate what they heard on FOX The same thing happens on the left with the New York Times. Laziness is a trait orthogonal to political party.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - jquery 5y ago
      False equivalence. Fox went to court to call themselves entertainment because of all the verifiable lies they were pushing. In court, Tucker Carlson said “no reasonable person” would believe him. New York Times standards are much higher than Fox. Are they perfect? No. But generally they are far less likely to lie to you.
      - jessaustin 5y ago
        You're trolling us, right? Maddow won a nearly identical court case using a nearly identical defense. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/a-court-ruled-rachel-maddows-viewers https://greenwald.substack.com/p/a-court-ruled-rachel-maddow...

scotty79 5y ago

Predictions shouldn't exist because noone is clairvoyant.

vorpalhex 5y ago
Clearly people can and do make predictions and sometimes those predictions are quite right - and sometimes wrong. Even a really really good predictor like Nate Silver gets things wrong. Future predictions are not fact checkable. You can argue likelihoods, present contrary evidence or whatnot but predictions are not facts, they are predictions. A good predictor gives odds to every outcome. That is not something a fact checker can respond to well.
- scotty79 5y ago
  > Even a really really good predictor like Nate Silver gets things wrong. That's because if he doesn't use mathematical modelling and data he's only ever accidentally correct. There's no such thing as good predictor. If you don't use knowledge (and the only real knowledge comes from scientific process) you can't get your predictions better than chance. It's a combination of brief luck and "predicting" the obvious. With interesting personality you can make a good career out of predicting that dice roll will result in >1. You'll by wrong in less than 20% of cases. Being good predictor is getting popular while you are on the roll. There's nothing else going there. All predictions that don't have a form of scientific paper with clear mathematical model and ample data are just making stuff up and should be labelled as BS in all media. World doesn't need prophets.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    Knowledge is not a binary. The world is not a mix of "true" and "false", especially not in the realm of analyzing future outcomes. You need to not only get multiple analysis, but normalize them, give them confidence scores and then interpret them - and you may interpret them differently than their authors. You may entirely discard some. How do you get a confidence score? Sure sometimes we can analyze the history of an analysis such as with political polling where we have someone like Rasmussen who has done it for a long long time... but you still need to account for changes in their own process. If Rasmussen gets a new head data scientist tomorrow, does that alter our confidence level? "Just use math!" is about the same as saying "Just don't be wrong!". Math is a tool, not a magic 8 ball.