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INFOLIT LAND
‘I Did the Research’ and Other (Misguided?) Statements
by William Badke
| Social media has given us permission to believe things deeply and do battle over them without ever getting to the level of evidence analysis. This is very bad for all of us. |
We hear it all the time: “Do your own research. Check it out for yourself.” It sounds reasonable, like something your mother would tell you. And so, people get to work and then make assertions, prefacing them by, “I did the reearch and…”There are other things we say that seem reasonable or at least worth pondering:
“I saw a news report that said …”
“I found it in Google Scholar, so it must be good.”
“Science is all corrupted, so I’ll go with my gut.”
“What I believe is my business, and I don’t need to tell you why.”
All of these assertions reveal our uneasy and often-misguided relationship with an information environment that gets more convoluted every day. Who or what can we believe? What are the best information sources? Does evidence matter if I’m convinced in my own mind?
This troubled relationship with information, fostered by a chaotic digital world, is immensely important for information literacy and for the future of our very lives. Let’s unpack a few of our misguided assertions.
‘I DID THE RESEARCH’
This fascinating statement can come across as a definitive assertion of certainty. It is telling us that you went through a process of investigation, made conclusions based on what you learned, and can now present your findings as truth. That would be great if most of us had much of an idea of how to do the research, based on the assumption that we are all information literate. Paul Zurkowski, back in 1974, estimated that about 20% of the U.S. population was information literate. I have seen few signs of that percentage growing since his time.
For the information literate who hear, “I did the research,” we would like to assume that there is a standard process people follow, a set of steps leading to an unassailable conclusion. That, of course, is not what happens. People don’t follow “Five Simple Steps to Doing Your Own Research.” Most of the students I encounter change their research process every time they start a new project. They say that they evaluate the evidence, yet they cannot articulate the criteria they use. Few even consider the crucial element of author qualifications.
Thus, “doing the research” is fraught to the core, especially for those who are not clear on what is required. Following a trail of social media for which every post champions the same view won’t work. Neither will doing a web search and finding some encouraging sites. Even generative AI is a dodgy path to ensuring your view is correct, because it hesitates to take sides. Untrained people simply do not have the ability to do the research in any sophisticated way. At best, “I did the research” becomes, “I studied up on the matter (through some means or other), and what I learned convinced me (confirmed to me) that I am right.”
‘I SAW A NEWS REPORT THAT SAID …’
This is a daily phenomenon for those who follow news or even social media. A journalist or influencer reports on a promising study, often medically based, that points to a dramatic solution. Of course, a responsible journalist would point out that implementation is still at least decades away and may not happen at all. But we are so prone to grasping the latest shiny thing that we too often ignore the cautions and assume that there has indeed been a breakthrough. Since it comes from “news,” whatever we mean by that, it must be true. And so, we help make the news viral, having become convinced enough to talk about this piece of progress as if its validity were unassailable.
Here are the problems. First, many of these dramatic news stories are based on research still in progress that may take a long time to be validated. The more dramatic the story, the less likely it is that we will see its fruition any time soon. Second, we are depending on the secondary interpretation of the non-scientist reporter who is sharing this news. That reporter may be more confident than the scientists or may pick out a novel piece of larger initial research findings, missing qualifiers that may make it less valid that it appears. Third, we receivers of the news are at a tertiary level where our interpretation of someone else’s interpretation of a primary piece of research could be inaccurate.
‘I FOUND IT ON GOOGLE SCHOLAR, SO IT MUST BE RIGHT’
Here we have the support of a database that has the word “Scholar” right in it. Before we elevate Google Scholar to the level of wise sage, we need to think about the nature of scholarship and about the variety of resources found in this database. To view a scholarly article as the pronouncement of a trusted sage is to miss the point of what scholars do. Scholars pose questions, acquire data, evaluate that data, and seek to offer the best interpretation of what they have found. At every point in the process, there is the potential to be wrong. Scholars can ask the wrong questions or miss including crucial elements of the problem they are addressing. They can acquire the data with all sincerity but use procedures or find results inaccurately. They can fail to evaluate the data properly and misinterpret its implications. Does this mean that scholarship is a failure? No, just that scholars are human. That is why replication of research is so important in the quest to be certain. Google Scholar itself is uneven, containing non-peer-reviewed preprints, predatory literature, and second-year undergraduate research papers. It is not a sage but a tool to deliver research, much of it solid and some of it dodgy. Finding it on Google Scholar does not prove it is correct.
‘SCIENCE IS ALL CORRUPTED, SO I’LL GO WITH MY GUT’
This is a particularly dangerous, yet ludicrous, assertion. To say science is all corrupted is to fly in the face of the reality that each of us is utterly dependent on science for our very survival. Everything we consume, everything that allows us to continue drawing breath, is, in one way or another, dependent on science. We would all be living in caves and eating mammoth meat if it were not for the discoveries that gave us our homes, vehicles, technology, health, and so on. Like it or not, science is foundational to our existence.
To be sure, science is flawed. Fraudulent research, mistaken research, and research whose validity changes across time are realities. That is why science at its best has a system of checks and balances that reveals the errors and seeks to overcome them. Corrupt scientists? Where are they? If they do exist, they are usually found out and discredited. To say that “science” is corrupt is flat out wrong, even if there are a few bad apples within the scientific community.
Why is this kind of viewpoint about science dangerous? I don’t think we have really reckoned with just how much danger doubting science puts us in. The constant discreditation of expertise in favor of going with your gut risks breaking the scientific foundation that supports us all. Putting amateurs into spaces where experts once stood or viewing science as an establishment that needs to be broken is ruinous both to our information landscape and our daily lives. We may disagree with scientific findings or distrust scientific assertions, but there is no better method on earth to investigate and verify questions that are still to be resolved. Your gut is a desperately poor substitute.
‘WHAT I BELIEVE IS MY BUSINESS, AND I DON’T NEED TO TELL YOU WHY’
This is fine for matters of faith, whether chocolate ice cream tastes good, or how you feel about your next-door neighbor. Keep your opinions and don’t tell us why. But reasons are the essence of a healthy information landscape, and we must strive to make them prominent. Social media has given us permission to believe things deeply and do battle over them without ever getting to the level of evidence analysis. This is very bad for all of us.
Certainly, our inner thoughts are our own business. We may indeed act without providing a rationale. But ultimately, refusing to give our reasons becomes a refusal to examine our reasons for ourselves. It’s a defence mechanism that attempts to ward off our critics. As such, it is a terribly weak foundation for belief. Our confusing digital world has fostered unverified assertions, even as we let emotion dominate over critical thinking as the basis for our beliefs.
ENTER INFORMATION LITERACY
Information literacy is not merely about learning how to use databases effectively. It’s training in a mindset that requires my beliefs to be founded in data, evidence, and convincing arguments. It is a way of looking at the world as a place of many voices, out of which we must strive for some measure of certainty based on agreed methods of investigation.
Across the centuries, societies that have enjoyed peace and prosperity (personal, financial, and social) have acted on the basis of agreement about the way to investigate the questions and problems they encountered. The consistent view that assertions must be based on evidence has often been challenged but has survived most detractors thus far. Yet we are now in an era in which that view is under attack by the very people who are dependent on the results of science to survive.
I can’t see any time that information literacy has been more important than today. It offers a way of looking at our knowledge environment that moves away from the slavish following of social media strings. Let’s say it out loud: “There was no Q, nor do vaccines cause autism or give the government an opportunity to put tiny trackers in you.” People with no training dare not rely merely on their instincts to make decisions about complex issues. Information literacy says, “Wait a minute. How do you know?” It puts the brake on breathless assertions and says, “Let’s follow the investigative methods that have gotten us here.”
I feel myself writing this with a strong sense of urgency. This is because, as an information literacy instructor for 40-plus years, I see a devolution in our information landscape that could well undermine all of life. Let information literacy flourish.
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