OLDaily

Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence
John Cook, Stephan Lewandowsky, Ullrich K. H. Ecker, PLOS ONE, 2020/07/14

One of the arguments against censorship of misinformation and fake news is that 'sunlight disinfects' and that 'truth will out' in the end. Our recent experiences with this philosophy in online content have shown that this is very often not the case. Falsehoods sometimes need sunlight to grow. "Misinformation is often resistant to correction—in particular if a correction challenges a person’s worldview." What the authors of this study found was that methods that "first elaborate on the general effects of worldview on the acceptance of evidence" are more likely to have an impact on the a subject's acceptance of misinformation than mere presentation of scientific fact to the contrary. From 2017 but relevant today.

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‘Different ways of knowing’
Joanne Jacobs, Linking and Thinking, 2020/07/14

This article by Joanne Jacobs references in a positive light this article by Lenny Pier Ramos that depicts the idea of many ways of knowing as unhelpful and unscientific. My view is that this is a misrepresentation of science. While we may want "to objectively understand a testable reality," in fact (as I have argued in the past) a great deal of science depends on the interpretation we give to the observations and measurements we make. Is the universe fundamentally mechanical or animal? Do probabilities represent alternative realities or personal commitments to individual outcomes? Are interactions quantifiable, or ineliminably vague? Evidence underdetermines interpretation. Push any scientific perspective hard enough, and you get a 'way of knowing'. These are always personal and often cultural. This is the core finding of historians philosophers of science of the last fifty years, and yes, it is overturning what could be understood as a colonial doctrine of a unified society.

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Making Online Learning Active
Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed, 2020/07/14

I appreciate the intent of this article, but I'm not sure the author fully comprehends the meaning of 'active'. "Show your students how to create a citation from a URL" is not an example of active learning. Neither is "Leading content repositories in U.S. history..." The is as a whole is just a well-worn list of internet tools (and not even divided into useful categories, like mine). While active learning can include internet tools, and pretty much anything is better than passive consumption, I think it's much better when it involves getting students up off their chairs, away from the computer, and into the rest of the house, the outdoors, or (pandemic permitting) the community.

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