Reasons Why Post-truth Claims Are Plausible, and Evidence That They Are Not true
Part I.
“The world that we have to deal with is out of reach, out of sight, out of mind. It has to be explored, reported, and imagined. [The media dominate this creation of pictures in our heads, because] they are the principal connection between events in the world and the images in the minds of the public.”
– Walter Lippmann, The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads (1922)
Your chemistry teacher explaining that water consists of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Your national health agency calling you with the announcement that there is a virus in your body. The NASA claiming that people walked on the moon in 1969.
You have not seen nor possess the evidence for the truth of those claims, but believe them anyway. Because you trust your teacher, the scientist, the institution.
Which makes them pieces of indirect information — knowledge (a) gathered by others that we adopt as our own (b) because they share it with us. Just like every statistic you come across, every study you learn about, everything you read in a textbook, everything you learn in school, everything you learn from your parents, every book you read, everything you see or read in the news, everything you read on social media…
