Fake news, ecco come batterle scegliendo le fonti - Il Sole 24 ORE

alespierno's bookmarks 2018-07-12

Summary:

[Google translate] Fake news, here's how to beat them by choosing sources

Knowing is important, even to look for what you don't know. I often remind my students of this. Since not everything can be known, the study should also be used to find your way around the sources of information. It is used to ask the right questions and to assess the reliability of the answers. In other words, it serves to establish the "truthfulness" of the sources of information, be it textbooks, publications or the Internet's mare magnum.

A complex undertaking in these times of systematic demolition - if not demonization - of the sources of information considered "official" (and among these there are now also teachers of all levels). Delegitimising the sources of information is a way of cutting the link between what is false and what is true.

 

And so it happens that opinions on topics such as vaccines, therapies, food, technologies, but also history, economics, psychology and law are confused with the information contained in texts, manuals, and scientific publications. Extraordinary misunderstanding of our times, aberrant extension of the concept "the opinion of Tizio is as valid as that of Sempronius". It doesn't matter if Tizio has studied that subject for years, and maybe he also teaches it, while Sempronio has been trained on "social" subjects or listening to some friends who take care of something else in life.

 

The "truthfulness" of sources is increasingly uncertain and not only because of social networks. It is the very dogma of the credibility of scientific publications, the foundations of the public exchange of knowledge and knowledge acquired through research, that is progressively crumbling.

It is no longer sufficient to say "these data have been published in this or that scientific newspaper" to give authoritativeness to a result (and perhaps close the door to some charlatan). It is no longer enough.

The multiplication of online scientific journals (the so-called predatory journals) that offer - paying for it - rapid publication in a myriad of sectors has become the new plague of scientific literature. Research workers receive more or less attractive requests on a daily basis to publish open access magazines in this or that format against a fee of up to a few thousand euros. All you need is a slightly smart web page and a more or less bogus editorial board, and you're done. With these channels it is very easy for false, duplicate or artefact results to enter the literature, as they are often not evaluated by experts (the famous peer review).

Link:

http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/commenti-e-idee/2018-07-09/fake-news-ecco-come-batterle-scegliendo-fonti-212539.shtml?uuid=AEI3c8IF&refresh_ce=1

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » alespierno's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.italy oa.italian oa.credibility oa.predatory oa.quality oa.journals oa.green oa.fees oa.repositories

Date tagged:

07/12/2018, 09:11

Date published:

07/12/2018, 05:11