Back cover Blurb from Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World by Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin West:
Bullshit isn’t what it used to be. Now, two science professors give us the tools to dismantle misinformation and think clearly in a world of fake news and bad data.
Misinformation, disinformation, and fake news abound, and it’s increasingly difficult to know what’s true. Our media environment has become hyperpartisan. Science is conducted by press release. Start-up culture elevates bullshit to high art. We are fairly well equipped to spot the sort of old-school bullshit that is based in fancy rhetoric and weasel words, but most of us don’t feel qualified to challenge the avalanche of new-school bullshit presented in the language of math, science, or statistics. In Calling Bullshit, Professors Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West give us a set of powerful tools to cut through the most intimidating data.
You don’t need a lot of technical expertise to call out problems with data. Are the numbers or results too good or too dramatic to be true? Is the claim comparing like with like? Is it confirming your personal bias? Drawing on a deep well of expertise in statistics and computational biology, Bergstrom and West exuberantly unpack examples of selection bias and muddled data visualization, distinguish between correlation and causation, and examine the susceptibility of science to modern bullshit.
We have always needed people who call bullshit when necessary, whether within a circle of friends, a community of scholars, or the citizenry of a nation. Now that bullshit has evolved, we need to relearn the art of skepticism.
“Bullshit involves language, statistical figures, data graphics, and other forms of presentation intended to persuade or impress an audience by distracting, overwhelming, or intimidating them with a blatant disregard for truth, logical coherence, or what information is actually being conveyed. The key elements of this definition are that bullshit bears no allegiance to conveying the truth, and that the bullshitter attempts to conceal this fact behind some type of rhetorical veil.”
― Carl T. Bergstrom, Calling Bullshit: The Art of Scepticism in a Data-Driven World
This book is a bit meta for me in that it is non-fiction about how to detect non-fiction from fiction. As I think about data science and how to analyze analysis, this book really focuses on unpacking information, looking as sources and biases, and considering numbers in context. While I was already familiar with some selection bias and ways data visualization can deceive, it is always nice to be reminded about systematically reviewing the quality of our information diet. It seems increasingly difficult yet important to be able to still believe new things we learn about the world without being overly deceived and manipulated.
I particularly appreciated them ending on the note of not slipping into becoming a “well actually” refuter. I have included the following tweet of helpful tips to help distinguish calling bullshit from tangential distractions.
