Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Post-Truth

0/5 ( ratings)

How we arrived in a post-truth era, when “alternative facts” replace actual facts, and feelings have more weight than evidence.

Are we living in a post-truth world, where “alternative facts” replace actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence? How did we get here? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Lee McIntyre traces the development of the post-truth phenomenon from science denial through the rise of “fake news,” from our psychological blind spots to the public's retreat into “information silos.”

What, exactly, is post-truth? Is it wishful thinking, political spin, mass delusion, bold-faced lying? McIntyre analyzes recent examples—claims about inauguration crowd size, crime statistics, and the popular vote—and finds that post-truth is an assertion of ideological supremacy by which its practitioners try to compel someone to believe something regardless of the evidence. Yet post-truth didn't begin with the 2016 election; the denial of scientific facts about smoking, evolution, vaccines, and climate change offers a road map for more widespread fact denial. Add to this the wired-in cognitive biases that make us feel that our conclusions are based on good reasoning even when they are not, the decline of traditional media and the rise of social media, and the emergence of fake news as a political tool, and we have the ideal conditions for post-truth. McIntyre also argues provocatively that the right wing borrowed from postmodernism—specifically, the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth—in its attacks on science and facts.

McIntyre argues that we can fight post-truth, and that the first step in fighting post-truth is to understand it.

Language: English

Pages: 236

Format: Paperback

Release: February 16, 2018

ISBN 13: 9780262535045

Post-Truth

0/5 ( ratings)

How we arrived in a post-truth era, when “alternative facts” replace actual facts, and feelings have more weight than evidence.

Are we living in a post-truth world, where “alternative facts” replace actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence? How did we get here? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Lee McIntyre traces the development of the post-truth phenomenon from science denial through the rise of “fake news,” from our psychological blind spots to the public's retreat into “information silos.”

What, exactly, is post-truth? Is it wishful thinking, political spin, mass delusion, bold-faced lying? McIntyre analyzes recent examples—claims about inauguration crowd size, crime statistics, and the popular vote—and finds that post-truth is an assertion of ideological supremacy by which its practitioners try to compel someone to believe something regardless of the evidence. Yet post-truth didn't begin with the 2016 election; the denial of scientific facts about smoking, evolution, vaccines, and climate change offers a road map for more widespread fact denial. Add to this the wired-in cognitive biases that make us feel that our conclusions are based on good reasoning even when they are not, the decline of traditional media and the rise of social media, and the emergence of fake news as a political tool, and we have the ideal conditions for post-truth. McIntyre also argues provocatively that the right wing borrowed from postmodernism—specifically, the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth—in its attacks on science and facts.

McIntyre argues that we can fight post-truth, and that the first step in fighting post-truth is to understand it.

Language: English

Pages: 236

Format: Paperback

Release: February 16, 2018

ISBN 13: 9780262535045

More books from Lee McIntyre

How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Post-Truth

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Philosophy of Chemistry: Growth of a New Discipline

4.3/5 ( ratings)

La actitud científica: Una defensa de la ciencia frente a la negación, el fraude y la pseudociencia

4.3/5 ( ratings)

The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience

4.3/5 ( ratings)

The Sin Eater

4.3/5 ( ratings)

A Companion to Public Philosophy (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy)

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Explaining Explanation: Essays in the Philosophy of the Special Sciences

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Truth Killers: A Manifesto on How to Fight Disinformation and Protect Democracy

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Wir lieben Wissenschaft: Mit einer wissenschaftlichen Grundhaltung gegen Betrug, Leugnung und Pseudowissenschaft

4.3/5 ( ratings)

The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Social Science

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?