Mindscape 108 | Carl Bergstrom on Information, Disinformation, and Bullshit

Ғылым және технология

Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.preposterousuniverse.com/...
Patreon: / seanmcarroll
We are living, in case you haven’t noticed, in a world full of bullshit. It’s hard to say whether the amount is truly increasing, but it seems that everywhere you look someone is trying to convince you of something, regardless of whether that something is actually true. Where is this bullshit coming from, how is it disseminated, and what can we do about it? Carl Bergstrom studies information in the context of biology, which has led him to investigate the flow of information and disinformation in social networks, especially the use of data in misleading ways. In the time of Covid-19 he has become on of the best Twitter feeds for reliable information, and we discuss how the pandemic has been a bounteous new source of bullshit.
Carl Bergstrom received his Ph.D. in biology from Stanford University. He is currently a professor of biology at the University of Washington. In addition to his work on information and biology, he has worked on scientific practice and communication, proposing the eigenfactor method of ranking scientific journals. His new book (with Jevin West) is Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World, which grew out of a course taught at the University of Wisconsin.
Mindscape Podcast playlist: • Mindscape Podcast
#podcast #ideas #science #philosophy #culture

Пікірлер: 61

  • @user-sx9lb1uv5m
    @user-sx9lb1uv5m6 ай бұрын

    Thank you Sean! I didn’t know you interviewed Professor Bergstrom. He’s one of my anchors in the realm of the most reliable information!. Love it. Thank you both so much!

  • @andrear.berndt9504
    @andrear.berndt95043 жыл бұрын

    Thank God , no Heartattack while listening to this Podcast !

  • @DrDress

    @DrDress

    3 жыл бұрын

    Yeah. Im almost at the end and I still fe

  • @karineroumache9124

    @karineroumache9124

    3 жыл бұрын

    I could die listening to a podcast : I listen to a lot of them 😁

  • @karineroumache9124

    @karineroumache9124

    3 жыл бұрын

    (But not yet ;) )

  • @rossmcleod7983
    @rossmcleod79833 жыл бұрын

    I was hoping to drift off to sleep with this, but could not. Fantastic guest, great show, many thanks.

  • 3 жыл бұрын

    I'm 1 minute in, and I'm so happy already. The world needs more of this.

  • @pamelacollins1153
    @pamelacollins11533 жыл бұрын

    People value tribal affiliation way above actual truth, even in some cases, to the point of sacrificing their own lives or family members’ lives. Thus suicide bombers, religious wars, cult suicides, family feuds, child sacrifice (as in “honor” killings) etc etc. There must have been a very strong evolutionary advantage for this? But now we really need to outgrow it.

  • @pamelacollins1153

    @pamelacollins1153

    3 жыл бұрын

    clemsonkid I understand what you are saying. For all of our evolutionary history we were tribal creatures, and it’s how we survived. Now in the last few millennia, especially the last few centuries, we have become multicultural. We are still so ruled by tribal instincts we may never be able to come together enough to solve the more devastating problems, climate change and overpopulation.

  • @youtou252
    @youtou2523 жыл бұрын

    This podcast series is my anchor to reality and sanity

  • @__H__
    @__H__3 жыл бұрын

    C. Thi Nguyen had a talk that is on KZread called The Gamification of Public Discourse, which also touches on a bunch of things that are tangentially talked about here, including the use/misuse of numbers. I think it might be very interesting if you had him on the Podcast.

  • @gpn962

    @gpn962

    Жыл бұрын

    Glad he got on. That's one of my fave episodes.

  • @lyleman2112
    @lyleman21123 жыл бұрын

    Preparing to be dazzled and baffled at once.

  • @iruleandyoudont9
    @iruleandyoudont93 жыл бұрын

    I am here to like for the title prior to watching the podcast

  • @ankiesiii
    @ankiesiii3 жыл бұрын

    I agree I cant believe how politicized every single thing is.

  • @chewyjello1
    @chewyjello13 жыл бұрын

    I'm listening to this episode just because it's fun to hear Sean Carroll say "bullshit" lol. :)

  • @DizZyFRK
    @DizZyFRK3 жыл бұрын

    Amazing title

  • @josefdulmer4770
    @josefdulmer47703 жыл бұрын

    My own solution to the confusion, just talk to different people - ideally face to face - and try not to be "right" but try to understand. This "crisis" is really multi-faceted there are a lot of things going on in parallel which "now" resurface very dramatically (like the health care system, the great inequality in wealth, the unemployment ... ). To be "sane" or free of bullshit on social media like Twitter is like drinking diet coke. Why even bother? Just spend most of your "social time" to connect meaningfully with other people in your immediate surrounding where you can certainly make the most impact ... and maybe occasionally listen to something like this podcast where scientifically accoladed peers talk to each other to get a different insight. But as I am listening to something like the Rogan Podcast, I can easily fool myself in believing to be a part of a conversation when in fact there is a UHNW-Individual (1 of 225.000 around the world) just talking whatever he likes to with a chosen guest. But I am lucky too belonging to the Top 20% and being able at least to engage with some of the ideas of possible worlds we can live in. But 80% are just left with some crumbles of global wealth (2%) and are simply excluded for all intents and purposes.

  • @josefdulmer4770

    @josefdulmer4770

    3 жыл бұрын

    :D Since English is not my native tongue the metaphor did not translate well, I guess. So I give it another shot: Sometimes I'm so immersed in the conversation that I simply forget that I'm listening to a recorded conversation over the internet. Maybe this is a subtle thing and ohter people are fully aware, but it feels at times so engaging that I do not realize the "artificiality" of it or the advanced technology for it to take place. There is a sound film clip of Thomas Mann from 1929 in which he himself reflects on this uncannily, I'll provide the English translation: "[...] It was a few months after the war [World War I] that I held a lecture on the radio at the invitation of the Südwest Deutschen Rundfunk in Frankfurt am Main. The impression I had at that time repeats itself today to a greater extend. In those days I experienced for the first time that the audience I was adressing was not present before me in a sensory or social way, not confined by the four walls of an auditorium, but that it listened invisibly, silenty and scatterred all over the world to my words, as I realised at times while I was speaking. But today this audience I am speaking to is not only separated from me spatially, but it is raptured away from me in time, and therefore I speak to a future audience through time. That is the fantastical and dare I say eccentric feeling I experience in this situation. [...]"

  • @kcinkg
    @kcinkg3 жыл бұрын

    I’d really like know who and why anyone would ‘thumbs down’ this or any of Sean’s videos/podcasts.

  • @StayPrimal
    @StayPrimal3 жыл бұрын

    Number of time you will hear the word Bullshit in this episode : Infinite, and beyond.

  • @codyramseur
    @codyramseur3 жыл бұрын

    I love you Sean Carroll ❤️

  • @kcinkg
    @kcinkg3 жыл бұрын

    Good Tube 👍

  • @abstro9942
    @abstro99423 жыл бұрын

    When does he go live?

  • @jonathanblock9527

    @jonathanblock9527

    3 жыл бұрын

    t99,gc

  • @chrisrecord5625
    @chrisrecord56253 жыл бұрын

    Yes, Bulls do defecate often and in large amounts but less than Elephants. There's clearly both a hierarchy and prejudice problem that needs to be addressed but bulls will not be offered safe spaces and microaggressions. I predict these injustices will only continue and they will be unjustly ignored for years to come.

  • @BrianGaeddert
    @BrianGaeddert3 жыл бұрын

    When are you going to have Stephanie Kelton on Sean?

  • @DogsaladSalad
    @DogsaladSalad3 жыл бұрын

    sean carroll used a bad word!

  • @errgo2713

    @errgo2713

    3 жыл бұрын

    I'm shook lol

  • @wrongtimeweeder1076
    @wrongtimeweeder10762 жыл бұрын

    Love your videos. Whilst not being too specific about your subject matter... any chance you could cover a person's transition from believing in astrology, palm reading, psychic ability, tea-bag reading, etc, to completely going the other way - acknowledging the scientific method 'is the way.? Damn. My mother was an astrologer(etc). And I believed her for the longest time.

  • @wrongtimeweeder1076

    @wrongtimeweeder1076

    2 жыл бұрын

    It has been painful and difficult to rid myself of her false beliefs. It drives me crazy sometimes, having to deliberately not cross my fingers for something good to happen. To not listen to/read horoscopes. To not touch wood for good luck. To not avoid cracks in the pavement. To not believe in ghosts. To not believe in the afterlife. All these things (and many more), my mother believed in, and made us (her children) believe the same. Sad. Sad. Sad. I truly thank YT and the science oriented creators for helping me see things a lot more clearly. But it sucks that I only discovered this a short while ago. A problem shared is a problem halved, right? Not sure that is true, but I do feel better getting that off my chest. Nobody else will listen to me, let alone understand. Someone here will understand, shirley? :D

  • @justanothernick3984

    @justanothernick3984

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@wrongtimeweeder1076 Hey, dont beat yourself up over that. You were lead to believe somethings that aren't true but could be useful in some instances. I don't believe in a higher power but my life is running pretty smoothly. But let's say I get in my car and out of nowhere, some child rides their bike out in front of me... That might stick to my conscience and haunt me for the rest of my life, not forgiving myself. Then I could maybe use a mindf*ck like some higher power who forgives me or if I get isolated in a retirement home and feel lonely, I can create my "own" reality. These aren't real, in the empirical sense but the impact they have on your mental status might be the difference between your life and not living. So I wouldn't discard the practice entirely. You are the only one you can't escape in your life, so...

  • @chewyjello1
    @chewyjello13 жыл бұрын

    Actually, when it comes to hydroxycloroquine, if you also include whether or not it is supported by science, it would be easy to tell where each side would fall.

  • @erikab1501
    @erikab15012 жыл бұрын

    I never wrote a paper based on bs, but I guess many people started out this way. I don’t trust that as it is a clear indicative that the person has no integrity and goes on practice more bs. Of course he is making a good point and these individuals do exist.

  • @justanothernick3984
    @justanothernick39842 жыл бұрын

    Disinformation seems to be a fluid concept, grounded in some value held by ideologies or cultures. Manipulation and propaganda are tools for influencing people towards a goal that isn't accepted by the current state of the culture. And at the moment, in the west* , the anti-humanitarian side seems to have another view of how things should be, so they will pump out alternative stats to battle the ones laid out by the side valuing humanistic virtues. This is how I see the information dilemma, anyways. Are there any disagreeing views? Please, let me know. * The west, because of our high standard of living, we can think more in moral terms than survival

  • @SandipChitale
    @SandipChitale3 жыл бұрын

    Was the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Physics and "shut up and calculate" practice in the Physics community a case of "Politicized" science which held us back from coming up with better theory and understanding of quantum physics? IMO it was. If it was, let us not make that mistake again please.

  • @Jason-gt2kx
    @Jason-gt2kx3 жыл бұрын

    Ah, I like the title. Nice to have the freedom from universities and main stream media.

  • @Raydensheraj

    @Raydensheraj

    3 жыл бұрын

    Ohhh....look. A Snowflake Trump Justice Warriors😆 why are you here? Crowder? Petersen? QAnon? Isn't that the home of " AltEnAtIvE TRutH"

  • @Jason-gt2kx

    @Jason-gt2kx

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@Raydensheraj What?! I think Trump is a narcissist. I was just happy Sean could use more casual language. Have a good night.

  • @TheSeverian

    @TheSeverian

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@Jason-gt2kx The mistake was understandable. I read it that way too, as if "universities" and "main stream media" were some sort of evil. Especially the latter is a red flag for right-wingnuts.

  • @Jason-gt2kx

    @Jason-gt2kx

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@TheSeverian lol no. I guess I didn't say it like I meant it. Just meant he is allowed to say bullshit when he isn't at work or representing his day job. Just shows how text and emails don't always come across as intended. People need to talk more.

  • @kennethbosch9
    @kennethbosch93 жыл бұрын

    crikey spicey seany c in da house, wut wut

  • @AdaptiveApeHybrid
    @AdaptiveApeHybrid3 жыл бұрын

    Yo Sean Carroll being funny as fuck. Color me surprised

  • @SandipChitale
    @SandipChitale3 жыл бұрын

    Thoughts on Eric Weinstein? Is he a perfect example of bullsh*er? What about Deepak Chopra?

  • @artyparty8166
    @artyparty81663 жыл бұрын

    He sounds like John Mulaney

  • @redditlegacy
    @redditlegacy3 жыл бұрын

    "123 people had a heart attack while listening to a podcast last year." sheeeeit...

  • @johnnybgoodeish

    @johnnybgoodeish

    3 жыл бұрын

    When you calculate the hours people spend listening to podcasts compared to other activities, it is found that you are less likely to get a heart attack listening to a podcast than a heart attack doing other things -especially if it is a Sean Carroll podcast! :)

  • @kennethbosch9
    @kennethbosch93 жыл бұрын

    sounds like the difference between a bull shitter and a liar is the same as the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath, I'm only 13mins in so if they say this I said it first :)

  • @jcmac7709
    @jcmac77093 жыл бұрын

    Early

  • @7star7storm7
    @7star7storm73 жыл бұрын

    So this guy is a .. bullshitter 😂

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