The Certainty Illusion

Download or read book The Certainty Illusion written by Timothy Caulfield and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2025-01-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world where there is so much conflicting information about how we are supposed to live, what can we really know? Knowing the truth, what’s real from what’s fake, should be easy. In today’s world, that’s far from the case. In The Certainty Illusion, Timothy Caulfield lifts the curtain on the forces contributing to our information chaos and unpacks why it’s so difficult—sometimes even for experts—to escape the fake. Whether it’s science, our own desire to be good and do the right thing, or the stories and opinions of others, there’s more to sussing out the truth than simply tracking down what feels like an authoritative source. These major forces—science, goodness, and opinion—Caulfield argues, drive beliefs and behaviour, but the ways that they can be corrupted, or worse, used to nefarious ends by bad actors, are endless. While it may feel, at times, as though we are circling the drain of truth, especially as new technologies make it even easier to spread dangerous fictions, Caulfield pulls us out of the vortex and keeps us afloat, helping us recognize and combat the forces that threaten to pull us under.