The art of (critical) reading

We say that we can read, but can we read critically? Do we know what critical reading is and how important role it plays not only in our lives but also in society?

This post was inspired by the book “Smoke and Mirrors. How hype obscures the future and how to see past it” by Gemma Milne

The analytic approach

While reading for entertainment is easy and does not require further thinking (although it’s recommended) reading to learn something new or to make an opinion, especially in the area of technology and science (and politics, but I won’t discuss this topic here), needs some “homework” after the act of reading. It prompts us to reflect on what we have read and think about it from different perspectives, compare with stories on the same topic written by different authors. Scratch the surface until we’ll see a bigger picture.

Gemma is asking us not to be afraid to scratch, she’s actually encouraging to scratch as hard as we can. She’s calling us to be curious especially when we’re reading news surfing on the wave of hype.
It’s not only about what we have in front of our eyes but also about further implications which are often ignored.

“Spotting and contextualizing hype isn’t about learning the nitty-gritty of how science and technology work, but rather seeing how they fit into the systems of society and looking at ideas through various different perspectives such as media, financial markets, law, geopolitics, socioeconomics and the environment.”

“Smoke and Mirrors. How hype obscures the future and how to see past it” by Gemma Milne

Gemma Milne is tech and science writer, for many years she’s been explaining science to people, what means she was translating sophisticated processes and discoveries to a language easy to understand by the public, by us who are not familiar with these nitty-gritty aspects and terminology which scientists are using in their studies. Observing the industry she noticed how many people trying to make tech articles more catchy are oversimplifying the topic or taking shortcuts and in the result are meddling the water instead of clearing it up. They fail and end up misleading people by giving them hopes with no real evidence.

The power of hype

Do you applaud every scientific breakthrough? Do you share it as soon as you finish reading (assuming you read before you share)?

Gemma is asking you to slow down, reflect, and try to find about it more before you’ll spread it out as your enthusiasm may be one of the victims of hype.

HYPE
— a situation in which something is advertised and discussed in newspapers, on television, etc. a lot in order to attract everyone’s interest.
—something that produce high levels of expectation but furnish quite meagre results.
Source: Cambridge Dictionary

The hype is a phenomenon, a medium which can do good, but in many cases may allow misleading information to go viral. Without a critical eye, you may unintentionally spread something, what is not exactly true.

And it’s not good.

What’s below the surface

Let's jump to an example. Are you in favor of electric cars?

They seem like a great answer to our problem with environmental pollution, right? Clever people invented them at the end of the 20 century…

Not exactly.

The first practical electric car was developed about 1870? Unfortunately making gas readily available for rural Americans contributed to the decline in electric vehicles. By 1935, they disappeared.

While ago we realized that fossil fuels are not a good idea and came back to the concept of an electric car. Although the hype around it made us believe that it was a groundbreaking concept that was developed by E.Musk &friends. But this is not what I wanted to point out.

I believe you know that the heart of the electric car is a battery, which was and still is the most expensive part of the vehicle. The size and capacity of a battery are serious issues the industry is struggling with.

But there’s something more problematic… Which companies developing electric cars (and phones, and laptops) don't like to talk about.

Do you know what is the prime element of batteries used in modern electric cars?

Cobalt

Do you know where it’s mined?

Democratic Republic of Congo

Do you know who owns mines? How people working there are treated?

This is a very long story which you probably won’t find in articles praising the development of electric cars. But you may find it in the article Cobalt: the dark side of a clean future. But you won’t find that in the mainstream media. To do that, you need to scratch, look for information from other sources revealing different aspects of the issue, you need to be actively researching the topic.

By asking questions and looking for answers you may be able to decode techniques used by “science or tech writing” hijacked by marketing narrative which follows the strategy > show the good stuff, hide the bad one, and stay silent about uncomfortable.

By asking questions and looking for answers you may decode techniques used by “science writing” hijacked by marketing narrative > show the good stuff, hide the bad one, and stay silent about uncomfortable.

In her book, Gemma dissects nine topics. She literally dismantles each into pieces, looks at from different perspectives, and let us see a bigger picture so we can learn what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s ugly. She doesn’t tell us what to think about discussed issues but gives evidence which we can use to make our own minds.

She encourages us not to take things for face value. She nudges us to dig deeper. We don’t need to have a scientific background to critically approach things we read about in the news. We just need to be open and ready to explore and look at problems more analytically.

I am joining her in the call to action directed to us all to:

• read critically
• check sources and facts
• think who can benefit from the story
• filter information through history or compare it with other information on the topic.

By reading critically, you sharpen your eye and expand your brain. Your neurons will like that.

If you’d like to find more about the “Smoke and Mirrors” you can read the article and watch the Chemistry World Book Club Podcast.
If you want to buy the book I encourage you to buy it from your local indie bookshop.

Thanks for reading the 41st post from My 52 problems series.
If you have a question or comment, feel free to add it here or post on twitter.