That one example I gave yesterday is one drop in an ocean of false responses and inaccuracy presented as authoritative reliability. Even if you believe the hype of a 9% inaccuracy rate, and I have no reason to believe it, the entire thing has disastrous results, not only for the individual who buys it BUT FOR THE ENTIRE ENTERPRISE OF PROVIDING ACCURATE INFORMATION. It is killing off the suppliers of accurate research, news gathering and information in general
Icing on the cake, IMHO and experience.
ReplyDeleteI taught college freshman for 20 years to write research papers. Let me say, I tried to. Google/Yahoo/what have you, reduced research to keywords. I’d lecture every semester about the fallacy of the keyword search. I was shouting into the void.
Thinking is hard, and anything that makes it easier will always be fine with 95% of the public. This applies across economic class and social strata and educational achievement. I’ve met highly intelligent people smart enough to forego “higher education, and graduates from elite universities who “went in dumb, come out dumb, too”
I honestly don’t know what will change that.