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The author of the viral post, redditor u/thoughtofeverything shared a few thoughts about distinguishing between reliable and unreliable sources and experts. They said that there probably isn't a definite answer to this.
"In our post-truth world it’s harder than ever to find information that’s not only truthful, but isn’t skewed in a way to present a particular bias or pit people against each other," they told Bored Panda.
"The only advice I can give is to not blindly accept anything and not rely on just one source of info. It’s our responsibility to be critical, discerning, objective and not fall into the confirmation bias trap."
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Redditor u/thoughtofeverything told Bored Panda that they tend to rely on the BBC for more unbiased news. "As far as mainstream news sources, I like BBC World News. It helps to have a source outside of the US with no political agenda," they said.
"I’m also fond of the podcast Abe Lincoln’s Top Hat, which I think does a pretty good job of covering US Politics from a more neutral perspective, despite the show’s hosts being pretty liberal themselves."
The OP noted that redditors, as a whole, tend to have "very strong opinions about things," which is probably why the thread went viral in the first place. They also added that they'd like to pass on their best wishes to the people of Iran and Ukraine.
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Meanwhile, science-savvy Steven, from the Omni Calculator team, told Bored Panda that "if a claim comes from a single source (whether it is an authority figure or not), you have to be quite skeptical."
He said that we have to look for independent sources to back up the claim. However, even then, this might not mean that a specific claim is necessarily true. "Even if there are loads [of independent sources], they may have gotten locked into a 'groupthink' situation, and the claim is actually false. We should never have blind faith in authority figures. There is always a chance they could be wrong."
According to Steven, experimental bias or cherry-picking results are the most common ways that authority figures can mislead others. "Often you just need to look at who funded the research. It's not surprising that (in the past at least) research funded by a maker of cigarettes said that their product was safe," he told Bored Panda.
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The expert believes that there seems to be a "reasonable balance" between outright skepticism and blind faith in the scientific community right now. "If the public were very skeptical, science would be hindered, and progress slowed. In areas such as healthcare and technology, science is delivering for people and making a difference in their everyday lives," Steven said.
"In the past few decades, [faith in the scientific community] has probably increased. Climate change is now more widely accepted than ever before now that its effects are clear to see. And science has got the world through the recent pandemic with innovative vaccines, anti-viral drugs, and data science." Steven added that the Omni Calculator team recently released a journalist's guide to numbers e-book that might be useful for anyone working with numbers, looking for trusted sources of information, and fact-checking claims.
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It’s absolutely horrifying to learn the effects of having added lead to gasoline. Research shows that exposure to leaded gasoline lowered the IQ of around half of the population in the United States. Gas that contains lead was banned in the US only in 1996.
Florida State University and Duke University researchers found that lead exposure during childhood cost Americans an average of 2.6 IQ points each. Those born in the 1960s and 1970s were affected far more than later generations: some Americans lost up to 6 IQ points while others lost more than 7.
In 2022 nearly everyone has access to the internet, so double-checking facts and verifying the reliability of a person or sources should be easy-peasy. Right? Unfortunately, the increased speed of the spread of information and the rise of social media means that it’s not just the truth that moves around lightning-quick—lies and fake news do, as well.
So while it’s easy to scoff at people in the past for ‘naively’ accepting the fact that gasoline had lead in it or that smoking wasn’t addictive or dangerous, the fact of the matter is that conspiracy theories, corporate lies, and hiding health hazards are all part and parcel of life in the current day, too.
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Just look at the events of the past few years if you need any evidence that some people are ready to believe practically anything and anyone, so long as it conforms to their worldview. The sad reality is that even with easy access to different sources and in-depth analyses and fact-checking, quite a few people don’t do their due diligence and accept whatever they read online. And that keeps false narratives and half-truths spreading.
Media expert Mike Sington previously explained to Bored Panda that media literacy is vital in this day and age. He said that there are various red flags that indicate a claim might be fake. If a claim is outlandish, sounds too good to be true, you haven’t heard it before, and you’ve never even heard of the source sharing the ‘fact,’ then odds are that it’s a lie.
You should do your best to find a couple of other reputable sources that back up any particular claim. Even doing a simple Google search before resharing anything you come across on social media can help slow down the spread of misinformation. And until you find additional evidence or sourcing that validates any ‘fact,’ you should remain skeptical.
"Do this and think before reposting or you may be contributing to the problem. Amplification doesn’t make a claim true or accurate," the media expert told Bored Panda that constant repetition does not turn a lie into the truth. He noted that some trustworthy sources include the Associated Press, Reuters, and The New York Times because they employ fact-checkers.
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