What is ground truth anyway?
From facts to fake-news how do we build real knowledge and overcome our own biases?
Viruses, climate change, vaccines, trade policy, we now live in an environment where virtually any position and knowledge will be challenged, even when most experts agree. Unfortunately getting people to agree on who the experts are is just as hard as agreeing on whatever it is they might be experts about. Yet we must use experts or we will fail in cases where specialized knowledge is truly needed. We wouldn’t ask just anyone to do life-critical surgery or to fix our cars — those require experts. The same holds true in many other areas. Yet in this modern age, it seems anyone with an opinion can be heard even when specialists already know authoritative answers. This essay represents a journey from raw observations all the way to having skill in area. In essence how do we know what we know?
Settled Knowledge or Just Bias?
It’s easy to dismiss people who just don’t “get the facts”. But a quick glance at even deeply accepted scientific knowledge shows just how hard reaching solid definitive knowledge really is. How can we settle on something that’s close to the “truth”?
Here are just a few ways this issue of seemingly settled “knowledge”, or perhaps even bias, might be viewed:
- Crowd Wisdom — If we take a large poll and examine questions for which there is a large majority answer have we reached an accurate…
