Calling Bullshit in an Age of Misinformation

Abstract
We are living in the era of fake news, half-truths, and bullshit bingo. We are bombarded with information, news, and clickbait headlines that are all supported with officially looking pie charts, percentages, and official reports to convince us of the truthfulness. Even science has been infected with predatory publishers and its own reproducibility crisis. But with every fact being contradicted by an opposing view supported by their own expert, statistic, or deep fake video, we are more confused than ever. So, how can we distinguish bullshit from fact? And how do we call bullshit when we see it? In this talk, I will describe my research and teaching efforts aimed at combating misinformation both in science and society, especially the kind of misinformation wrapped in data, algorithms and statistics.

Biography
Jevin West is an Associate Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington. He is the co-founder of the DataLab and the Director of the new Center for an Informed Public at UW. He holds an Adjunct Faculty position in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. He is also a Data Science Fellow at the eScience Institute and Affiliate Faculty for the Center for Statistics & Social Sciences. His research and teaching focus on misinformation in and about science. He develops methods for mining the scientific literature in order to study the origins of disciplines, the social and economic biases that drive these disciplines, and the impact the current publication system has on the health of science. He co-developed a course, Calling BS, that teaches students how to combat misinformation wrapped in data, figures, and statistics. The course is now being taught at universities around the globe. More information can be found at jevinwest.org.