Gell-Mann amnesia

Media, information, critical thinking

When you know marketing, you understand most marketing advice online is bullshit. When you’re an expert in statistics, you see news gets the numbers twisted. If you're a professional football coach, it pains you to hear people at the bar talk about football - such are the inaccuracies in their discussion.

Then you read the next thing in the newspaper or Reddit or Twitter - it’s a topic you’re not an expert in - and you blindly accept the information as fact.

Gell-Mann amnesia is a tendency to forget how unreliable the news - or any information - is. We're reminded of the inaccuracy whenever there's a topic we know a lot about, yet we're not critical enough when we face a less familiar topic.

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