Researchers tackled criticisms and concerns from past studies.
New light on the Dunning-Kruger effect[1] (DKE) came on Feb 25, 2021, when researchers tackled criticisms and concerns from past studies. In the landmark paper Unskilled and Unaware of It (1999), Dunning and Kruger wrote about a phenomenon where people who knew the least were overly confident in their abilities and stayed confident because they did not comprehend how little they knew. Critics have asserted that the idea is elitist or that study design is responsible for study results rather than DKE, but this latest study supports the idea that DKE exists.
“Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions…
A new report provides the first rigorous study looking at Q-adherents arrested for crimes related to the Capitol attack
Introduction
Qanon. It’s a catch-all collection of conspiracy beliefs that weaves anti-semitic Nazi propaganda, Christian tropes, and anti-intellectualism. The identity of their prophet, known only as Q, has almost certainly changed. Q is anonymous, hence the name Qanon, so followers and researchers can’t say with certainty who the original or subsequent prophet was.
When the group’s messianic figure, former President Donald Trump, lost the 2020 election, Q-adherents sought to correct this disruption in “the plan.” Journalists uncovered the shockingly rapid radicalization of people arrested for crimes on January 6th. …
Media Manipulation
Did you hear that Biden canceled a program intended to investigate sex offenders illegally in the US? Here’s what you should know.
Operation Talon is a Chicken Little
Multiple fantastical headlines now claim that President Biden canceled Operation Talon, a program described as investigating sex offenders who are illegally in the US.
Who would cancel such a project? You’d have to be out of your mind, right? That’s exactly the response the authors of those stories want you to have. Sure enough, it worked.
What’s Happening?
Here are two headlines on the story:
1) Breitbart: FLAG Moody: ‘No Reason’ for Biden to Terminate Operation Targeting Sex Offenders in Country Illegally
“On Saturday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) stated that there…
RT expands disinformation tactics and shifts coverage to play up censorship narratives while presenting Putin as a defender of free speech.
Russia Today Telegram Messaging
Following the Jan 6th attack on the Capitol, platforms purged users sharing extremist content from recognized domestic terror threats like Qanon. Censorship, specifically of conservatives, became a major theme in the Russia Today Telegram channel.
Content sets up Putin as a true defender of free speech at the same time it has played up the censorship threat. Nevermind that Putin is likely responsible for the deaths of at least 22 journalists. The shift may hint at their ultimate aim.
Peer-Reviewed Policy
We must step up our response to address the nature of the threat: the aerosol spread of Covid-19.
What social media personalities aren’t telling you matters. These lies are scaring people, and that is not OK.
Twitter suspended the accounts of Project Veritas and its founder James O’Keefe on Feb 11, 2021. Immediately following that, one can find a prime example of how social media personalities influence how we experience reality. Mr. Posobiec is modeling motivated reasoning, a bias that often leads us to misjudge situations.
Demand far exceeds supply — at least for the moment.
By Julie Appleby, Feb 5, 2021
Even as the pace of vaccination against covid-19 has steadily accelerated — hitting an average of 1.3 million doses a day in the last days of January — the frustration felt by many of those unable to secure an appointment hasn’t waned.
Why they wonder, can’t I get one if 100 million shots will soon be administered?
Of course, the answers aren’t simple. Rules keep changing. Data about the number of vaccines delivered and administered — backed by computer systems that often can’t efficiently exchange information with one another — lag. …
Confirmed foreign disinformation campaigns sourced from government-controlled media outlets outside the US.
A searchable version of the database depicted at the end of the article can be accessed here: Bill Gates Disinformation. Too many articles exist to include them all, but we’ve included a sampling.
Kremlin-backed outlet Russia Today has websites in nearly every language. About 80% to 90% of reporting from Russia Today-Sputnik News too-is of high quality and good reporting. That’s not an accident. It has to be, so when they run headlines like the ones you see here, that credibility they’ve shown you before transfers to misleading and fabricated content.
Farmworkers who harvest and pack bell peppers in the Coachella Valley listen to Montserrat Gomez explain the benefits of the covid vaccines.
by Heidi de Marco
originally published Feb 3, 2021
MECCA, Calif. — Dust swirled in the air as Luz Gallegos parked her SUV on the side of a dirt road. She had just learned that her aunt died of covid-19 — the third family member to succumb to the disease in only two weeks.
She stepped out of her car at about 11:30 a.m. onto a bell pepper farm in this agricultural community in the Coachella Valley, a little northwest of the Salton Sea.
Gallegos, a daughter of farmworkers who had worked in the fields herself, had only 15 minutes…
Cybersecurity
The software company SolarWinds unwittingly allowed hackers’ code into thousands of federal computers. A cybersecurity system called in-toto, which the government paid to develop but never required, might have protected against this.
by Peter Elkind and Jack Gillum
originally published Feb 3, 2021
As America struggles to assess the damage from the devastating SolarWinds cyberattack discovered in December, ProPublica has learned of a promising defense that could shore up the vulnerability the hackers exploited: a system the federal government-funded but has never required its vendors to use.
The massive breach, which U.S. intelligence agencies say was “likely Russian in origin,” penetrated the computer systems of critical federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Treasury Department, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Justice, as well as a number…
E. Rosalie
Public health biologist studying at Johns Hopkins | Science writer & artist | Views reflect me alone | Subscribe @ Novel-Science.com
