If the Washington Post ran an article that stated that a former NASA scientist believed the rate of climate change was vastly higher than previously anticipated I would probably buy it.
If it later turned out his specialty was Chemistry, he had been fired for using his expertise to make meth, and his research was bunkum I would have to eat crow and watch that publication far more carefully.
On a more realistic note I believed to my chagrin that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and reading of some of the awful crimes of Saddam I thought not going in would be a great act of moral evil as it would mean abandoning the citizens to be victimized by a monster. 21 year old me didn't realize there was no good proof of WMDs, that we would kill half a million of them, and that we might well leave them no better off if our efforts collapsed shortly after we left.
Insofar as what separates the reasonable from the rubes
- A modest amount of accumulated understandings about how history,science, math, stats etc work sufficient to reject obviously untrue statements
- The understanding that everything you understand or think you know ought to be criticized and revised over time in response to new evidence. Valuing truth over authority and conformity.
- An understanding of the common failure modes of logic and reason so that you can recognize bullshit when you see it
- A reasonably strategy to use all of the above to evaluate sources continually to see if they are and remain trustworthy.
Most of us here are presuming (I presume) that we are immune from misinformation, disinformation etc. Why is that? What quality distinguishes we,the observers,from they,the victims?
It seems obvious that education might be the decider. But I'd like to know. What quality of the HN reader distinguishes him from the victim of misinformation?