A PSA about the importance of “keeping it real” part 1 (AKA misrepresenting opinion/bias/public perception as fact)!
By: Max Truth
Tags: Children, Logical Reasoning, Writing, Public Service Announce, Wellbeing

You know when you get an email, or search for something, or see ads, and the title for a story reads: “how to”, “how not to”, “you need to”, “don’t”, “do”… and similar — or the extreme version: “you have to do this now!”… That’s when a mental red flag is set off in my brain immediately, and I’m advising you to do the same, be extra critical of what is said there (the last example should be a no-brainer, yet so many people fall for content like that too, usually advertisement for scams).

This is especially important for younger readers / audiences (and this is especially true for videos with the popularity of YouTube) that are much more easily influenced due to the lack of life experience and logical reasoning capabilities.

The next step is then to understand and apply the principles of logical fallacies — and there are quite a few of those (https://www.logicalfallacies.org/ for example could be used as a resource).

The whole logical fallacy list can be difficult to apply though, especially to articles that claim their conclusions come from scientific resources (ie. “recent research has shown that…” or “science has proven that…”). There is a shortcut though for a first-pass validation of the “sincerity” (no ulterior motives behind) claims, by checking for the following:

Logical fallacies (these are my top 3 because they are the easiest to check):

a. Strawman — misrepresentation of facts.

b. Appeal to authority — even calling someone an authority when that person knows little to nothing about the topic.

c. Anecdotal — only because one person or a few people have done something, does not mean that others should do the same. Are there links or mentions (names) to references given, and do those even hold any value?

Just because an article or someone claims that research has been done, that does not mean that it indeed so was the case, especially if no references are given — meaning, research papers — references to newspaper / magazine articles, blogs and similar (AKA content that anyone with any background can create) are not(!) qualified references!!! (yes, this is a big one) Was the research peer-reviewed?

And even if a reference to a research paper is given, by whom and how was that conducted — such as: was it published in appropriate scientific literature; how many other qualified researchers have reviewed it; for how long has this been in evaluation, and how was this evaluation conducted (lab-controlled and randomized trials and other test methods applied). How long was this known / how new is this research?

With very new scientific findings the danger is that it can generate false positives / negatives, because it usually is not just a simple evaluation but a complex process that takes resources (time, effort, know-how, possibly has a dependency on other research first being completed and validated, and with all that, also usually a lot of money / funding, which in turn can take a lot of time to put together). Research can not be labeled as “proper research” and thus is not a fact until completed and has undergone peer-review.

If any of the questions above are not fulfilled — meaning, you have dug into those and validated these yourself, or someone qualified and reputable has done so — then any statement as such is then just an opinion and can possibly lead to great harm if followed.

And therefore my advice — regardless of age and “wisdom” and scientific background — is to assume that whatever statement is made or advice is given or reasoning is communicated, that it is at best a personal opinion or even a mere ploy with the purpose for that person or business to make money, even as a scam.

Even if someone has only the best intentions, people are still driven by bias, but also they do understand, interpret and even remember things incorrectly, which then leads to wrong conclusion or misrepresentation.

And last but not least — and this applies to both authors and readers / audiences — people do like to agree and are swayed to believe something to be true easily, when it makes them feel good about what they hear or see, especially if it makes them feel good / better about their bad habits.

As I mentioned in the title of this article, I intend to write a part 2 to this, giving some examples.

In the meantime, I urge everyone to be more critical of “news” and “facts” and not take or represent content as “face value” and fact — and first see if the content and its message or messages pass a logical fallacies check and my 3 points… don’t give in to mediocracy and own bias, it causes more harm than good, especially long-term and worst-case scenario, not just for you but also others, especially loved ones / children.