3 ms·

I posted some comments below laying out the reasons why I don't like this. I got heavily downvoted and the majority opinion is clearly against me, saying essent

I posted some comments below laying out the reasons why I don't like this. I got heavily downvoted and the majority opinion is clearly against me, saying essentially that he is a great teacher with the white hat for teaching everyone not to believe what they read on the internet. I guess I ought to gracefully admit defeat and bow out to oblivion. Still, I cannot resist making one final farewell appeal. Consider carefully the near future, when prof. Kelly will have produced a flood of busy graduates, all experts at disinformation. What is the likely outcome of his program if it succeeds? It is not that hard to guess. You will get what you applaud: you will no longer be able to trust anything you read, ever. You seem to consider this to be of some great educational value but I must admit that the value escapes me. Let me extrapolate one step further. What is the point of reading anything if it is all likely to be false? Exactly. Stop reading and sit on your dumb asses watching TV.

Robin_Message 14y ago
Snipping some insults in return and focusing on the issue here: "graduates, all experts at disinformation" — snort!?!? The world is full of experts in disinformation, and they're not the graduates of a short University course on History that couldn't even fool reddit (no offense redditors!) They are politicians, lobbyists, campaigners of all political stripes, bureaucrats, journalists, historians etc. Knowing how to sort the wheat from the chaff (and knowing it necessary to do so) is half the point of education, especially in History. And that's what the professor is helping achieve, not a systematic destruction of the written word through a single demonstration as part of a 3 credit University course. Experts at disinformation my hat!
eru 14y ago
And you think not having this one course will make it easier for you to keep your illusions?
tytso 14y ago
>Still, I cannot resist making one final farewell appeal. Consider carefully the near future, when prof. Kelly will have produced a flood of busy graduates, all experts at disinformation. As others have pointed out, masters of disinformation have existed long before this class existed. To take just one example, if you're left-leaning, Fox News (to liberals, Faux News). If you agree with Fox News, then you'll consider everything from the the "Mainstream Media" (or "Lamestream Media") to be disinformation. Furthermore, there is a grand tradition in explaining about how the "darks arts" are done so you can defend against it. In order to devise defenses to nerve gas, you need to understand how to effectively deploy nerve gas. If you want to understand how politicians and other masters of disinformation use statistics, the book "How To Lie Using Statistics" is an invaluable guide. > What is the likely outcome of his program if it succeeds? It is not that hard to guess. You will get what you applaud: you will no longer be able to trust anything you read, ever. Yes, this. You should never blindly trust anything that you read. That's what critical thinking is all about. The point of reading is to find alternate points of view and information that you might not have known before, but everything should be cross-checked to some degree. In some cases you can trust the source because you've previously found the source to be authoritative (say, a professor teaching a class). But the point of what people are trying to point out with respect to wikipedia is that just because one Wikipedia article has been proven to have a reliable secondary source of information, aggregating multiple primary sources into a handy reference article, is absolutely no guarantee that that particular article will continue to be reliable, or that any other Wikipedia article is guaranteed to be reliable. Using Wikipedia to expose yourself to something that you didn't know before: Good. Not cross-checking anything you read at Wikipedia with primary source material to learn more and to verify the facts that you found in the Wikipedia article? Foolhardy.
- SagelyGuru 14y ago
  >In some cases you can trust the source because you've previously found the source to be authoritative (say, a professor teaching a class) Allow me to laugh. This is a professor teaching a class (how to lie)! I guess that makes him an authority on lying but can someone like that be said to be authoritative? Or all other professors, by association? I must say that I accept many of the valid responses here, thank you. His classes no doubt are educational and one should, of course, check the sources. However, he is taking practical assignments too far. You can teach students to beware of liers without them first having to lie themselves. It does not seem like the skill of a great teacher to make them actually lie to the public. More like a desperate stunt from a teacher running out of ideas and morals. Understading is one thing and I agree with all that but in terms of your examples, he is demanding the equivalent of his students actually deploying the nerve gas against unsuspecting people. (Thank you for suggesting that hyperbola)
nollidge 14y ago
> you will no longer be able to trust anything you read, ever. Were you born yesterday? You already can't trust anything you read, at least not 100%. Even if you had actually shown (as opposed to simply declaring repeatedly) that he's making the problem worse, it would be a drop in the ocean.

Robin_Message 14y ago

Snipping some insults in return and focusing on the issue here: "graduates, all experts at disinformation" — snort!?!? The world is full of experts in disinformation, and they're not the graduates of a short University course on History that couldn't even fool reddit (no offense redditors!) They are politicians, lobbyists, campaigners of all political stripes, bureaucrats, journalists, historians etc. Knowing how to sort the wheat from the chaff (and knowing it necessary to do so) is half the point of education, especially in History. And that's what the professor is helping achieve, not a systematic destruction of the written word through a single demonstration as part of a 3 credit University course. Experts at disinformation my hat!

eru 14y ago

And you think not having this one course will make it easier for you to keep your illusions?

tytso 14y ago

>Still, I cannot resist making one final farewell appeal. Consider carefully the near future, when prof. Kelly will have produced a flood of busy graduates, all experts at disinformation. As others have pointed out, masters of disinformation have existed long before this class existed. To take just one example, if you're left-leaning, Fox News (to liberals, Faux News). If you agree with Fox News, then you'll consider everything from the the "Mainstream Media" (or "Lamestream Media") to be disinformation. Furthermore, there is a grand tradition in explaining about how the "darks arts" are done so you can defend against it. In order to devise defenses to nerve gas, you need to understand how to effectively deploy nerve gas. If you want to understand how politicians and other masters of disinformation use statistics, the book "How To Lie Using Statistics" is an invaluable guide. > What is the likely outcome of his program if it succeeds? It is not that hard to guess. You will get what you applaud: you will no longer be able to trust anything you read, ever. Yes, this. You should never blindly trust anything that you read. That's what critical thinking is all about. The point of reading is to find alternate points of view and information that you might not have known before, but everything should be cross-checked to some degree. In some cases you can trust the source because you've previously found the source to be authoritative (say, a professor teaching a class). But the point of what people are trying to point out with respect to wikipedia is that just because one Wikipedia article has been proven to have a reliable secondary source of information, aggregating multiple primary sources into a handy reference article, is absolutely no guarantee that that particular article will continue to be reliable, or that any other Wikipedia article is guaranteed to be reliable. Using Wikipedia to expose yourself to something that you didn't know before: Good. Not cross-checking anything you read at Wikipedia with primary source material to learn more and to verify the facts that you found in the Wikipedia article? Foolhardy.

SagelyGuru 14y ago
>In some cases you can trust the source because you've previously found the source to be authoritative (say, a professor teaching a class) Allow me to laugh. This is a professor teaching a class (how to lie)! I guess that makes him an authority on lying but can someone like that be said to be authoritative? Or all other professors, by association? I must say that I accept many of the valid responses here, thank you. His classes no doubt are educational and one should, of course, check the sources. However, he is taking practical assignments too far. You can teach students to beware of liers without them first having to lie themselves. It does not seem like the skill of a great teacher to make them actually lie to the public. More like a desperate stunt from a teacher running out of ideas and morals. Understading is one thing and I agree with all that but in terms of your examples, he is demanding the equivalent of his students actually deploying the nerve gas against unsuspecting people. (Thank you for suggesting that hyperbola)

nollidge 14y ago

> you will no longer be able to trust anything you read, ever. Were you born yesterday? You already can't trust anything you read, at least not 100%. Even if you had actually shown (as opposed to simply declaring repeatedly) that he's making the problem worse, it would be a drop in the ocean.