Book recommendations

PVCC's One Book for 2021 is "The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread" by Cailin O'Connor and James Owen Weatherall!

Why should we care about having true beliefs? And why do demonstrably false beliefs persist and spread despite consequences for the people who hold them? Philosophers of science Cailin O'Connor and James Weatherall argue that social factors, rather than individual psychology, are what's essential to understanding the spread and persistence of false belief. "The Misinformation Age", written for a political era riven by "fake news," "alternative facts," and disputes over the validity of everything from climate change to the size of inauguration crowds, shows convincingly that what you believe depends on who you know.

Books in this One Book Reading Guide are about misinformation, critical thinking, and the psychology of belief.

Synthesizing thirty years of research, psychologist and science historian Michael Shermer upends traditional thinking about how humans form beliefs about the world. Simply put, beliefs come first, and explanations for beliefs follow. In "The Believing Brain", Shermer provides countless real-world examples of how this process operates, from politics, economics, and religion to conspiracy theories, the supernatural, and the paranormal.

The world is swimming in misinformation. Conflicting messages bombard us every day with news on everything from politics and world events to investments and alternative health. "Beyond Fake News" argues that even when we really want the truth, our minds are built in such a way so as to be incapable of grasping many facts, and blind spots mar our view of the world. But we can do better, both as individuals and as a society.

Are you overwhelmed at the amount, contradictions, and craziness of all the information coming at you in this age of social media and twenty-four-hour news cycles? "Fake News, Propaganda, and Plain Old Lies" will show you how to identify deceptive information as well as how to seek out the most trustworthy information in order to inform decision making in your personal, academic, professional, and civic lives. Donald A. Barclay takes an objective, nonpartisan approach to the complex and nuanced topic of sorting deceptive information from trustworthy information.

Although news outlets are meant to be impartial, they have never been perfectly unbiased. Another layer was added to the ongoing debate over the role of news media after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when allegations of fake news surfaced. How can people know which news sources to trust? This volume explores the fake news phenomenon and offers readers tips on how to be critical of what they see reported.

We are bombarded with more information each day than the mind can process. "A Field Guide to Lies" tackles misinformation in two categories: the numerical (such as mishandled statistics and graphs) and verbal (including faulty arguments and how to distinguish experts from hacks). The field guide caps this with an overview of the scientific method.

This book asks what determines whether people accept and share (mis)information, and what can be done to counter misinformation? All three of these aspects need to be understood in the context of online social networks, which have fundamentally changed the way information is produced, consumed, and transmitted. The contributions within this volume summarize the most up-to-date empirical findings, theories, and applications and discuss cutting-edge ideas and future directions of interventions to counter fake news.

"Reality Lost: Markets of Attention, Misinformation and Manipulation" is an analysis by Vincent F. Hendricks and Mads Vestergaard of the nuts and bolts of the information market, the attention economy and media eco-system which may pave way to postfactual democracy. Here misleading narratives become the basis for political opinion formation, debate, and legislation. To curb this development and the threat it poses to democratic deliberation, political self-determination and freedom, it is necessary that we first grasp the mechanisms and structural conditions that cause it.

We live in the Information Age, with billions of bytes of data just two swipes away. Yet how much of this is mis- or even disinformation? A lot of it is, and your search engine can't tell the difference. This book provides an inoculation against the misinformation epidemic by cultivating scientific habits of mind. This survival guide supplies an essential set of apps for the prefrontal cortex while making science both accessible and entertaining.

Conspiracy theories are not a recent invention, and they are not always a harmless curiosity.In "Suspicious Minds", Rob Brotherton explores the history and consequences of conspiracism, and offers insights into why so many of us are drawn to implausible, unproven and unprovable conspiracy theories. The fascinating psychology of conspiracy theories tells us a lot about how our minds are wired, and, indeed, why we believe anything at all.

It's raining bad data, half-truths, and fake news out there -- and some of this nonsense is having devastation consequences. Daniel J. Levitin shows how corporate and government reports, statistics, and news stories can mislead, and reveals the way lying weasels use them. What makes lies dangerous is the certainty with which people are prone to believe them. Here is how to fix that.