I have just finished reading Why Fish Don't Exist. It is a book rich in narrative tension, yet riddled with logical contradictions.The book's dramatic shifts are superb. The portrayal of David Starr Jordan undergoes three or four significant twists, a narrative structure that is truly unique. The reversals and surprises this book delivered were no less compelling than those of the best suspense thrillers. I thank the author for telling me such a magnificent story, and for introducing me to Jordan—a figure so successful, multifaceted, and complex.Overall Verdict: An absolute page-turner, provided you read it with a critical mind. Whether a dandelion is a cure or a poison depends entirely on the malady.The author is able to sing the praises of chaos only because she stands on a foundation of order built by predecessors. If the world were truly to regress to the primitive state of primordial chaos she desires—without classification, without hierarchy, without selection—her fragile, sentimental soul wouldn't survive the first episode. She enjoys the dividends of order, yet peddles the thrill of shattering it within her pages.I have always been someone with "positive illusions," striving to establish order with confidence, perhaps even narcissism. I believe in what Westaby said: humility and introspection are useless, even harmful. The author wants to embrace chaos because she went through a breakup and the collapse of her life; without acceptance, she faced continued depression or suicide. This is her self-salvation. But for me, having not experienced her specific trauma, resisting chaos and establishing order is my weapon against depression, and an effective one at that. If I were to force myself to embrace uncertainty without being in the existential crisis the author faced, it could lead to a terrifying disintegration of the self.Likewise, I detest the forcing of historical figures and events to align with one’s personal views, especially through cherry-picked examples. The fact that the author embraces chaos because she can accept it does not make it rational, nor does it mean everyone can enjoy it. Jordan resisted chaos, and at least from his personal perspective, he achieved a confident, narcissistic, and self-consistent life. And a fascinating one at that—educator, ichthyologist, and murder suspect.Because the old order hurt her, and because she could not control it, she deemed the old order hypocritical and harmful, proceeding to negate the rationality of order itself. This is absurd—a typical victim narrative. If everyone simply drifted with the tide, true, there would be no eugenics, but there would absolutely be no Stanford University either.The author believes that categories and the desire to order the world cause incredible harm. Bullshit. This is textbook slave morality. The author attempts to force a slippery slope argument: Classification = Hierarchy = Eugenics = Nazis/Harm. There is a flaw in her attribution logic; using Jordan as a single data point to prove that establishing order brings harm is preposterous. The essence of language and classification is to lower cognitive costs. In restaurants, on fishing boats, and even in laboratories, the word "fish" is useful and efficient. Lulu throwing away the word "fish" to dissolve meaning is as childish as throwing a credit card in the trash to prove money is a fiction. By Lulu’s logic, since "sunrise" doesn't exist astronomically (it is the Earth rotating), must we stop saying "sunrise" and say "earth-turn" instead? Dissolving the referential function of everyday language isn't profound; it's anti-intellectual. She wrote a book opposing order using rigorous grammar, precise vocabulary, and structured arguments. This is the ultimate hypocrisy. She ought to be rendered intellectually aphasic, unable to write a single word.To oppose taxonomic systems simply because they categorize and marginalize groups, and to believe this is an inevitability of such systems, is ridiculous. It possesses a kind of politically correct beauty, the aesthetic of the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy — painting the bullseye around the arrow after it lands.The book devotes a large number of pages to hinting that Jordan might be involved in the murder of Jane Stanford, yet fails to produce a shred of hard evidence. This precisely corroborates the hypocrisy of the author's logic: in scientific classification, she cites vast literature and experts, demanding extreme rigor (albeit selectively), but when convicting a man, she embraces groundless chaos. As long as it fits her narrative of toppling the old order, truth can make way for emotion.Regarding eugenics: in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, eugenics was a mainstream philosophy in Western intellectual circles, even considered a sign of "progress." Many left-wing progressives of the time supported it, believing it could reduce suffering. Today, eugenics is naturally indefensible, but at the time, given the limitations of technology, it is difficult to judge harshly with modern eyes and morals. Jordan was certainly wrong to promote eugenics, but Lulu’s attempt to pin the errors of human historical process entirely on Jordan is erecting a straw man.I enjoy confidence, even narcissism; they are my primary long-term sources of dopamine. If one is humble, one easily becomes fragile. I do not deny leaning towards libertarianism. If anyone accuses me of harboring traces of elitism or even Social Darwinism in my thinking (since many people love to radicalize opposing views and slap labels like "Nazi" or "Darwinist" on them), I accept it fully and can’t be bothered to refute it.Of course, I have no desire to change others. Changing the long-held values of others is unprofitable, exhausting, and thankless. Likewise, I refuse to be changed by others; change must come from within. Fortunately, I am growing and constantly changing; unfortunately for them, how I change is basically up to me.Jordan's tragedy lies not in attempting to establish order, but in trying to use pre-Darwinian Essentialism—believing that all things have a perfect, immutable essence, and that differences are imperfections, errors, or deformities. He tried to find the perfect holotype for every species, and even tried to "improve" humanity through eugenics. However, in the population thinking introduced by Darwin and popularized by Mayr, variation is the fundamental property of nature. Variation is what makes evolution possible.Lulu clearly commits the opposite error—the Naturalistic Fallacy. That is, attempting to define "good" or moral attributes using natural properties, a concept close to Hume's Is-Ought problem. She attempts to use changes in biological classification to guide sociological ethics, which is extremely absurd.The author even gives off a whiff of pseudoscience. Although not explicitly stated, she reveals a nihilistic attitude towards proven facts. The scientific statement "fish don't exist" means that this specific monophyletic group does not exist. The author forcibly elevates a biological fact into a sociological concept—implying that since fish don't exist, social hierarchies shouldn't exist either, and we shouldn't be defined.Ironically, science has never denied the existence of fish; it merely changed the concept from a monophyletic group to a paraphyletic one. Even more ironically, the cladistics that helps Lulu break "order" is based on genetics and evolution, pursuing an order that is more precise and extreme than traditional Linnaean taxonomy. Most ironically, Lulu selectively ignores one of its sister conclusions—"Humans are also fish." If we follow her own logic, humans are nailed firmly to the "fish" spot on the evolutionary tree, and her story falls apart completely. If she were being scientifically accurate, Lulu Miller is also a fish—specifically a descendant of the Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish) superclass within the Osteichthyes (bony fish) megaclass. In that case, her book should have been titled "No, Fish Exist, and We Are All Fish."Lulu seems to misunderstand the cornerstone of modern taxonomy. The so-called non-existence of fish stems not from the collapse of order, but from the victory of Cladistics (Phylogenetic Systematics) proposed by Willi Hennig in the mid-20th century. Hennigians do not oppose order; on the contrary, they pursue a more extreme and precise order—only evolutionary trees built on synapomorphies are recognized. This strict scrutiny has nothing to do with the "anything goes" chaos Lulu desires.A monophyletic group is a complete evolutionary branch containing a common ancestor and all its descendants. A paraphyletic group is a monophyletic group with some descendants removed. A polyphyletic group implies species from different ancestors, which is not recognized by taxonomists (e.g., one cannot group harpy eagles, bats, and flies together just because they fly).It is important to highlight the two superclasses under Osteichthyes (bony fish). Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish) have fins with muscles, connected to the body by bone, suitable for supporting the body and crawling. The Sarcopterygii superclass has few members, containing only four classes and subclasses, including Coelacanths and Dipnotetrapodomorpha (lungfish and tetrapods). Actinopterygii (ray-finned fish) have fins made of webs of skin supported by bony spines (rays), suitable for precise control in water. The Actinopterygii class is thriving, covering over 99% of distinct fish species.In old taxonomy, Osteichthyes did not include tetrapod land vertebrates. However, since tetrapods evolved from Sarcopterygii, from a cladistic perspective, the traditional definition of Osteichthyes became a paraphyletic group. Meanwhile, bony vertebrates (including Actinopterygii and Sarcopterygii descendants) constitute a monophyletic group. To solve this, some taxonomists extended the scope of Osteichthyes to cover all tetrapods, making it a monophyletic group synonymous with Euteleostomi (bony vertebrates).To serve her emotional healing needs, Lulu forcibly distorts the spirit of science. Because she hates Jordan's "artificially imposed order," she dresses up modern evolutionary biology—which is cold, rational, and emphasizes genetic determinism even more than the old order—as a tender, shackle-breaking freedom fighter. Wielding the knife of genetic order to cut the Gordian knot of social order—displaced and absurd.Lulu wants to use the non-existence of fish to dissolve meaning, but she crashes into the iron wall of science—Fish not only exist, but they wrote this book, and they wrote this blog post. Her citation of taxonomy is a classic case of professing love for dragons only to flee when a real one appears (Ye Gong Hao Long).Perhaps this is the common ailment of popular non-fiction writing: Storytelling comes first, logic second, and science is just an accident.The problem with this book is that Lulu attempts to package a medicine that worked for her—but for which the [Contraindications], [Adverse Reactions], and [Precautions] are unknown—as a universal panacea for her readers, saying with tender affection: "Come now, drink the medicine. It's good for you."It is actually quite interesting. Lulu and I are both trying to control order; we are both deconstructing something. I am attempting to control a certain order; she is attempting to create an order she can control. She deconstructed fish; I deconstructed her.
我刚刚看完了《鱼不存在》这本书。一本富有叙事张力的书，也是一本充满逻辑矛盾的书。这本书的戏剧性转变很棒，对乔丹的塑造经历三四次波折，这种叙事结构是独树一帜。这本书带给我的反转和惊喜不比最好的悬疑电影来的差。我感谢她给我讲了一个这么精彩的故事，感谢她让我知道还有乔丹这样一位成功、多面、复杂的人物。综合评价：绝对的好书，但要带着自己的思考去读。蒲公英是药还是毒，取决于得了什么病。作者能赞美混乱，是因为她正站在前人建立的秩序地基上。如果真的如她所愿，世界退回到没有分类、没有等级、没有优选的原始混沌状态，她那种脆弱的感性灵魂是活不过第一集的。她在享受秩序带来的红利，却在书中售卖打破秩序的快感。我一直是有着积极错觉的人，并且努力建立秩序，自信甚至自恋。我相信韦斯塔比说的，谦卑和自省是无用甚至有害的。作者想要拥抱混乱，是因为她经历了分手、生活崩塌，不接受就等着继续抑郁自杀吧，这是她的自我救赎；但对于没有经历的我而言，抵抗混乱、建立秩序这同样是我抵抗抑郁的武器，并且卓有成效。如果没有陷入作者这种存在主义危机而要硬去拥抱不确定性，那可能是一场可怕的自我瓦解。同样，我讨厌强行将历史人物和事件与自己的个人观点扯上关系，尤其是讨厌举例论证。作者拥抱混乱，是因为她能接受，不代表这是合理的，不代表所有人都能享受。乔丹抵抗混乱，起码从他个人的角度，他也获得了自信、自恋、自洽的人生。而且相当精彩——教育家、鱼类学家，以及谋杀嫌疑犯。由于旧的秩序伤害了她，由于无从掌控旧的秩序，便认为旧的秩序是虚伪且有害的，进而否定整个秩序的合理性，荒谬，典型的受害者叙事。如果所有人都随波逐流，那确实不会有优生学，但也绝对不会有斯坦福大学。作者认为，词语类别和让世界有序的愿望，会造成难以置信的伤害。胡扯。典型的奴隶道德。作者试图强行建立一个滑坡，分类 = 等级划分 = 优生学 = 纳粹/伤害。而且在归因逻辑上有问题，仅通过乔丹一个例子，就说明建立秩序会带来伤害，荒谬。语言和分类的本质是降低认知成本，在餐厅、渔船甚至实验室，鱼这个词语好用而高效。露露为了消解意义，把鱼这个词扔掉，就像她要证明货币是虚构的而把银行卡丢垃圾箱一样幼稚。按照露露的逻辑，因为“日出”在天文学上是不存在的，是地球自转，所以我们也不能说“日出”，只能说“地转”？消解日常语言的指代功能，不是深刻，是反智。她用着严谨的语法、确定的词汇、先扬后抑的讨论，写了一本反对秩序的书。这是究极的虚伪。她应该失语，连书都写不出来。因为划分人群、边缘化人群就反对分类体系，并且认为是分类体系的必然，荒唐。有种政治正确、屁股决定脑袋、射完箭画靶子的美感。书中用了大量篇幅暗示乔丹可能涉及简·斯坦福的谋杀案，却拿不出一条铁证。这恰恰印证了作者逻辑的虚伪：在科学分类上她引用了大量文献、专家，要求极致的严谨（虽然是选择性的），但在给一个人定罪时，她却拥抱了莫须有的混乱。只要符合她打倒旧秩序的叙事需求，真相是可以为情绪让路的。关于优生学，在19世纪末20世纪初，优生学在欧美知识界是主流显学，甚至被认为是“进步”的标志，当时的许多左翼进步人士也支持优生学，认为可以减少苦难。如今优生学自然站不住脚，但在当时这是科技所限，难以用现代的眼光和道德去苛责。乔丹固然错误地鼓吹了优生学，但露露试图将人类历史进程中的错误完全归结到乔丹身上，是在竖立稻草人。我喜欢自信甚至自恋，那是我长期多巴胺的最主要来源。如果谦卑，人很容易变得脆弱。我不否认我偏向自由意志主义。如果有人指责我的思想中可能有精英主义甚至社会达尔文主义的影子（因为对于不同意见者许多人总是喜欢把对方观点极端化给对方打上个纳粹主义/达尔文主义/...的标签），那么我完全接受，并且懒得反驳。当然，我也不愿改变他人，改变他人长久以来形成的价值观无利可图，淘神费力，出力不讨好。同样，我也拒绝被他人改变，改变只能由自己进行。幸运的是，我在成长，不断改变；不幸的是，怎么改基本上我说了算。乔丹的悲剧不在于试图建立秩序，而在于试图用前达尔文时代的本质主义，认为万物都有完美的、不变的本质，而不同就是不完美、错误、畸形的。他试图寻找每个物种完美的正模标本，甚至试图用优生学改良人类。而在达尔文引入、迈尔推广的种群思维中，认为变异才是自然根本属性。变异使得进化成为可能。露露显然犯了相反的错误——自然主义谬误。即试图用自然属性来定义“善”或道德属性，与之相近的概念则是休谟的实然-应然问题。她试图用生物学上的分类变化来指导社会学的伦理，这是极为荒唐的。作者甚至有种伪科学的意味，虽然没有明确说明，但透露对于已经证明的事物的虚无态度。科学上的鱼不存在指的是这个单系群不存在，作者将一个生物学上的事实强行升华为一个社会学上的理念——既然鱼不存在，那么社会上的等级也不应该存在，我们都不应该被定义。讽刺的是，科学自始至终就没有否认过鱼类的存在，仅仅是将其单系群的概念变成了并系群。更为讽刺的是，帮助露露打破秩序的分支分类学，基于基因和演化，追求的是比传统的林奈分类法更为精确和极致的秩序。最讽刺的是，露露选择性忽视了它的一个姊妹结论--“人类也是鱼”，如果按她自己的逻辑，人类被死死的钉在了演化树上“鱼”的位置，她的故事就完全讲不通了。如果她科学一点，露露·米勒(Lulu Miller)也是鱼，而且是硬骨鱼高纲(Osteichthyes)中肉鳍鱼总纲(Sarcopterygii)的后代。那时候，她的书名应该叫做《不，鱼存在，而且我们都是鱼》。露露似乎误解了现代分类学的基石。所谓鱼不存在不是源于秩序的崩塌，而是源于Willi Hennig在20世纪中叶提出的支序分类学即系统发育分类学的胜利。亨尼希主义者并不反对秩序，相反，他们对秩序有着更极致和精确的追求——只有基于共有衍征建立的演化树才是被承认的。这种对他者的严格审视，与露露想要的那种怎么都行的混乱毫无关系。单系群是一个包含了共同祖先和所有后代的完整演化支。并系群是单系群中剔除了部分后代。复系群则是来源于不同祖先的物种，不被所有分类学家承认，例如无法因为会飞就把角雕、蝙蝠、苍蝇归为一类。需要着重介绍的是硬骨鱼高纲下的两个总纲。肉鳍鱼的鱼鳍有肌肉，并由骨头支撑连接到身体，适合支撑身体和爬行。肉鳍鱼总纲成员不多，仅有腔棘鱼纲和肺鱼四足纲等四个纲和亚纲。辐鳍鱼的鱼鳍由皮膜构成，由放射状的骨质鳍条支撑，适合精细控制水中动作。辐鳍鱼一纲鱼丁兴旺，涵盖了现存鱼类的99%以上。在旧有的分类学里，硬骨鱼并不包括四足类的陆生脊椎动物，然而，由于四足类演化自肉鳍鱼类，如此，从支序分类的角度，传统定义中硬骨鱼便成了并系群，而包括辐鳍鱼和肉鳍鱼以下的硬骨脊椎动物则可构成一个单系群。为了解决这个问题，一些分类学家将硬骨鱼类的范围延伸，使之涵盖了所有四足类，构成一个与硬骨脊椎动物等义的单系群。露露为了服务于她的情感治愈需求，强行扭曲了科学精神。她因为讨厌乔丹那种“人为强加的秩序”，把冷酷、理性、甚至比旧秩序更强调出身决定论的现代演化生物学，强行打扮成了一个温情脉脉、打破枷锁的自由斗士。拿着基因秩序的刀，去斩社会秩序的乱麻，错位又荒谬。露露想用鱼不存在来消解意义，却撞上了科学的铁壁——鱼不仅存在，而且写了这本书，还写了这篇博客。她对分类学的引用，是一次典型的叶公好龙。也许这正是通俗非虚构写作的通病：故事性第一，逻辑性第二，科学只是个意外。这本书的问题在于，露露试图将一碗对自己有效，而【禁忌】【不良反应】【注意事项】都是尚不明确的药，包装成万能神药推销给读者，还温情脉脉地说“大郎，你就喝了它吧”。其实挺有意思的，露露与我都在试图掌控秩序，都在解构某种东西。我在试图掌控某种秩序，她试图创建某种能掌控的秩序；她解构了鱼类，而我解构了她。
在充斥着争论、谎言和片面真相的世界中保持清醒
AI摘要：这篇文章为人们在充满争论、谎言和片面真相的世界中保持清醒提供了实用指南，分为四大部分： 1. 设定写作动机：作者分享写作动因，解释独立思考和批判性思维的概念。 2. 识别论证中的错误：作者点出常见的逻辑谬误，如稻草人谬误、人身攻击谬误、滑坡谬误、负载问题、乞题（循环论证）、虚假两难、有偏差的概括、诉诸大众舆论、诉诸权威、诉诸无知、因果谬误等。此外，还指出了一些常见的修辞手法，它们从技术上讲并不是谬误，但可以通过激起你的愤怒、同情或恐惧来减少你的怀疑。 3. 信息来源：作者提供选择可信的媒体和避免不可靠的消息来源的建议和注意事项。 4. 其他：作者提出初始可信度判断的方法、谨慎使用社交媒体、阅读更多书籍和有意识地练习。Powered by CatGPT.独立思考与批判性思维实用指南本文字数较多，内容复杂，因此我用中英文混合撰写，英文版完成后再翻译润色，中文版根据英文版重新翻译。写作中使用的工具： DeepL Translate, DeepL Write人们之所以痛苦，并不是因为他们用笑声代替了思考，而是因为他们不知道为什么要笑，为什么要停止思考。 赫胥黎，《美丽新世界》。2024.9.15 更新：幸运但不幸的是，我找到了一本事实核查手册（只有中文版），其中包含了本文没有的许多有用技巧。我觉得我白写了这篇文章。无论如何，它仍然值得一读，我希望这些可以互相补充。写作理由几个月前，我读了两本关于批判性思维的书，对网络环境中信息复杂性的认识促使我写作相关的博客。然而，这只能是对书本的机械复制，会导致文章枯燥乏味，我根本不想在博客上发表这样的文章。最近，恰逢我的博客重新开通。因为独立思考一直是我关注的问题，也因为同学和家人对网络宣传（无论是商业宣传还是政治宣传）的盲目迷信，导致缺乏理性和客观的判断，所以我萌生了整理自己应对网络谎言和虚伪的策略的想法。我关注了中国对日本排放核废水的不满和俄罗斯对战争的美化，发现这些宣传大多来自谎言和相互竞争的真相。 人们需要的只是一些基本事实、一些严谨的思考，甚至只是一些常识，谎言就不会如此泛滥，而遗憾的是，这正是人们所缺少的。老师或媒体可能会向你强调这两者的重要性，但他们很可能不会告诉你具体该怎么做，甚至有可能连他们自己都不清楚。让你免于谎言并不难，你不需要有公民调查员的敏锐、逻辑学教授的严谨或历史学者的博学。本文是关于整理你需要的基本知识和工具，以便检查、思考和判断你收到的信息。请记住，当涉及到这些要素时，实践远比理论重要。本文可能是通往独立思考之路的开端，但它永远不会是终点。什么是批判性思维和独立思考？附注：如果你用英文查找，你会发现在西方，批判性思维和独立思考被混为一谈，两者都是批判性思维。但本文的重点不在于它们的区别或包容关系，而在于它们是如何被使用的。本来我没打算写这一部分，但在写这篇文章的过程中，我体会到把这两个概念解释清楚并不是多余的。另外，在上一篇转发的文章中，我提到系统地写出自己的观点也是一种学习。我问我的同桌："你认为独立思考和批判性思维分别是什么？"出乎我意料的是，他只是简单地回答了 "不因为别人的观点而改变自己的观点 "和 "能够发现别人观点中的弱点"。好吧，独立思考并不意味着固执己见，批判性思维并不意味着简单地挑出错误，也不局限于观点。独立思考是指一个人在面对问题、信息或观点时，不受外界影响，独立地进行分析、判断和评价，并形成自己独特的见解和观点。批判性思维：批判我们在形成观点、做出判断、做出决定和形成结论时的思维方式，对思维过程进行理性评估。我必须承认，作为一个有点叛逆的人，第一次学习这两个概念时，我很兴奋，我以为可以从这些看似专业的叙述中找到对自己的理解和支持。然而，就在我读完《批判性思维》这本书的第一章后，我的观念发生了改变，我开始把它视为一个重要的工具。从避免被当局的民族主义宣传激怒，到避免因商业公司的宣传而过度消费，从离开只是希望被关注的自媒体，到减少亲朋好友间的谣言传播，我们都希望能够避免提出或接受不好的论点。我们还希望排除不相干的因素，我们希望不要让情绪主导我们的思想，我们希望不要成为谬误和偏见的牺牲品，我们希望不要听信无能的权威或一知半解的假设。你犯的这些错误越少，你就会越聪明。不是说你一时变得更精明，而是说你整体上更聪明。I 事实核查对于某些信息中没有很好描述但对你非常重要的事实，你需要这样做区分结论和事实 事实：真实的客观陈述。观点：主观的陈述 p.s. 关于事实的断言：不一定是真实的，但其真实性并非主观臆断。查看维基百科概述维基百科始于 2001 年。 经过 23 年的发展，维基百科已经成为互联网上值得信赖的资源，也是访问量最高的网站中唯一的非营利性平台。 所有信息 "必须准确无误、不带偏见地呈现"，信息来源必须来自第三方，只有 "第三方在可靠来源中对该主题进行了报道"，才能创建维基百科文章。 热门文章要经过成千上万次的审核，例如，阴谋论几乎不可能继续在维基百科上发表。 一些媒体专家认为，正因为有了这个艰苦的过程，维基百科上经过严格编辑的文章可能是有史以来最可靠的信息来源（Bruckman, 2022）。 相比之下，传统的学术文章--最常见的科学证据来源--通常只经过最多三个人的同行评审，然后就不再编辑了。维基百科上编辑频率较低的文章可能不如热门文章可靠。 不过，要想知道维基百科上的文章是如何创建和修改的，还是很容易的。 对文章的所有修改都会在其 "历史 "页面中存档。 编辑者之间关于文章内容的争议记录在其 "讨论 "页面中。 与前面提到的特点一样，对于新闻来说，它可能缺乏客观性，甚至可能不是即时的，但对于已经发生了一段时间的事情来说，它很可能是准确的。注意：由于中国用户特别是编辑者较少，为避免接受来源不可靠或不严谨的内容，中国用户（至少）不应使用简体中文作为查看语言。使用英文（在看不懂的时候使用浏览器翻译扩展）是个好选择维基百科中的陈述相对客观，你需要自己提取事件的概览，利益相关者等。并依据这些确定进一步挖掘的方向。一些常见的伪造对于引用的事实： 由于有许多假新闻网站模仿正常新闻网站的域名，你最好使用搜索引擎搜索它们，而不是点击链接。防止捏造专家/组织： 中国最大的几家媒体曾虚构了一位名叫威尔逊-爱德华兹的瑞士科学家，以支持他们关于大流行病的说法。为了防止这种情况，你不能只看 X 等平台上的账户，你应该关注 Linkedin 和他们发表的论文等。关注引用信息的发布日期：对于一些时效性较强的事项，如失业率和经济状况，一些新闻机构会用过时的信息误导你。关注确定性质的词语：一个典型的例子是，中国媒体描述 90% 的乌克兰人认为和谈是可以接受的，而原文是不可接受的。（这一消息曾被中国网民广泛相信和转发。）伪造他人（专家等）的言论或立场： 对于独立思考的初学者来说，当你查询这个专家时，它是真的，然后你可能会相信这条消息是真的。你需要关注的不仅是这个权威人士的身份，还有他说过什么，他的立场是什么。你可以通过查询他的社交媒体、会议记录等来做到这一点。搜索传统搜索你听说过搜索运算符吗？它让搜索更有针对性 我认为，知道如何使用搜索运算符才能真正成为一名优秀的搜索者。下面是一些有用的运算符。基本运算符*这些基本运算符大多是布尔运算符，可与其他搜索引擎（如 Bing 或 Yandex）或其他谷歌服务（如 Gmail、Drive 和 YouTube）一起使用。"主题"：严格匹配。您可以使用此搜索运算符查找术语的特定形式（仅复数或单数），或排除同义词搜索。主题 A| 主题 B： 查找与一个或另一个主题相关的页面，或同时与这两个主题相关的页面。 也可作为 主题 A OR 主题 B-主题：从搜索结果中删除包含特定关键词的项目。"主题 "： 用作通配符， 返回缺少查询中指定的一个或多个术语的结果。 注意 * 和""必须同时包含。数字 A..数字 B： 查找指定数字范围的结果。高级运算符冒号后不要空格 :site:example.com :将返回仅限于指定站点的结果。这很常见。related:example.com :将返回谷歌认为相关的网站。它不一定总是准确的，例如，它会发现我的网站与哈佛大学相关。cache:example.com :将返回指定网址（如果有索引）的最新缓存版本。 这对调查一些最近发生变化的网站非常有用。filetype:example.com ： 将搜索结果限制为指定的文件类型。allintitle:example.com ： 返回标题中出现所有指定单词的结果allintext:example.com :返回包含所有指定单词的网页source:example.com :只搜索指定来源的内容location: :返回特定地理位置的内容。混合使用案例"[来自您网站的唯一字串]" -site:[您的域名] ： 识别引用或剽窃的其他网站。如果没有结果，则表示正常。[term] filetype:[file extension] site:[domain researched] ： 有些网站索引的文件可能不为公众所见，这也是挖掘商业机密的方法之一。对于 X(Twitter)你可以轻松使用 高级搜索 .图片搜索**对于社交平台上的图片，它们可能表现不佳，但大多数情况下值得一试。谷歌：可以搜索与图片中最明显的元素相关的图片。缺点是如果图片搜索的主题不是很明确，可能得不到高质量的结果。此外，该搜索仅限于一个主题，因此假设输入的是山峦和湖泊附近房屋的照片，您不会看到山峦和湖泊附近房屋的照片，而是会看到视觉上相似的房屋，但没有考虑到湖泊或山峦的背景。Yandex：提供相同图片的其他尺寸、视觉上相似的图片，以及页面上有许多相似图片的结果。它是人脸匹配和位置识别方面最好的搜索引擎，对社交媒体上的图片反应良好Bing： 可识别照片中的元素，并找到包含所有这些元素的图片，也可以随意裁剪照片，并查看实时结果。对于具有多个可识别主体的高质量图片，它将非常有用。Tineye： 提供视觉上相似的照片，以及其他具有相同构图的照片。与其他平台相比，它在纯数字媒体（头像、徽标等）方面的表现更好。。可以查找一个人的不同平台账户。验证工具事实搜索网站Google Fact Check ToolsSnopes.comSnopes.com 是互联网上历史最悠久的揭秘网站之一，主要关注都市传说、新闻故事和流行语。该网站将互联网上的一系列谣言按照真伪进行分类，通常还会对这些谣言的历史和谣言的性质进行调查。 他们还会在每篇驳斥文章的末尾注明证据来源。TruthorFiction这是一个追求事实真相、揭穿骗局的网站。虽然对事件的分析不如 snopes.com 那么全面，但总体而言，它仍然是一个非常值得信赖的网站。Consumerreports该网站评估消费者问题和消费品，包括医疗保健和理财。该网站没有广告，并经常退一步，以避免观点的偏颇。Washington Post Fact CheckerPolitifact曾获普利策奖的 Politifact 对政治家的言论进行研究，并检查其准确性。FactCheck.org本网站是安纳伯格公共政策中心 (APPC) 的产品。本网站完全保持政治中立，并批评任何歪曲事实的政治评论。浏览器扩展Chrome Fake News Detector 这款简单的扩展程序能在你访问以传播假新闻著称的网站时发出警报。Chrome Know News 监控不可靠的网站，并根据可靠性评分（1-10 分）显示浏览器通知Search By Image 功能强大的图片搜索插件开源调查工具地图 但不仅仅是地图必应地图： 拥有比 Google 更快、分辨率更高的图像；缺点是较难检查图像的日期。谷歌地球专业版： 优点是有历史图像。地图检查： 可计算选定谷歌地图区域内的人数。点击地图可添加点并绘制区域图。适用于集会、群众活动或救灾 ...... 等。HERE WeGo： 用于调查中东地区的事件，其卫星图像比 Google 更新颖。NASA EarthData： WorldView允许对来自NASA的近实时图像进行可视化。其优点很多，包括各种卫星和航空图像；广泛的搜索标准；以及其他制图和可视化工具，如用于火灾事故调查的FIRMS等： NASA 地球观测：50 多个数据集，包括大气、陆地、海洋、能源、环境等。OpenStreetCam：顾名思义。基于地理位置的搜索Liveuamap：冲突新闻的交互式实时地图： 阿富汗、伊拉克、叙利亚、美国、乌克兰、委内瑞拉等。 其他工具无法搜索到的国家也可以在这里找到。Photo-Map.RU：可查看带有地理标记的 VKontakte 帖子。功能与 SnRadar 相同。Twitter： 插入地理代码： 在搜索框中输入[坐标]、[半径-公里]，例如：geocode:36.222285,43.998233,2km（仅适用于公里，因此 500m = 0.5km）。WarWire： 基于地理位置的搜索。可验证 Twitter、VKontakte、Instagram 等社交媒体上的帖子。图片、视频和元数据图像取证： 基于网络的图像取证工具。可轻松识别伪造或篡改的图像。仅对公众开放。FotoForensics： 基于网络，易于使用。缺点是只能公开访问。杰弗里图像元数据查看器： 一个在线提取元数据的工具。只需要一个网络浏览器即可。但也只能公开访问。Foca：提取元数据。基于 Windows，2017 年开源。缺点是不支持本地 linux（需要在 linux 中安装 wine）Irfanview：提取元数据的工具。基于 Windows，缺点是不支持 Linux。InVID：这是一款帮助记者验证图片和视频的验证插件。提供上下文数据、元数据、反向搜索（Google、Yandex）、图片取证等功能。.OpenStreetCam：顾名思义。基于地理位置的搜索Liveuamap：冲突新闻的交互式实时地图： 阿富汗、伊拉克、叙利亚、美国、乌克兰、委内瑞拉等。 其他工具无法搜索到的国家也可以在这里找到。Photo-Map.RU：可查看带有地理标记的 VKontakte 帖子。功能与 SnRadar 相同。Twitter： 插入地理代码： 在搜索框中输入[坐标]、[半径-公里]，例如：geocode:36.222285,43.998233,2km（仅适用于公里，因此 500m = 0.5km）。WarWire： 基于地理位置的搜索。可验证 Twitter、VKontakte、Instagram 等社交媒体上的帖子。图片、视频和元数据图像取证： 基于网络的图像取证工具。可轻松识别伪造或篡改的图像。仅对公众开放。FotoForensics： 基于网络，易于使用。缺点是只能公开访问。杰弗里图像元数据查看器： 一个在线提取元数据的工具。只需要一个网络浏览器即可。但也只能公开访问。Foca：提取元数据。基于 Windows，2017 年开源。缺点是不支持本地 linux（需要在 linux 中安装 wine）Irfanview：提取元数据的工具。基于 Windows，缺点是不支持 Linux。InVID：这是一款帮助记者验证图片和视频的验证插件。提供上下文数据、元数据、反向搜索（Google、Yandex）、图片取证等功能。社交媒体脸书Graph.tips：自动高级搜索 Facebook 资料。IntelTechniques：用于分析 Facebook 资料和页面的各种工具。Facebook livemap： 搜索世界各地的直播流。搜索工具： 通过姓名、电子邮件、网名和电话号码查找账户。StalkScan： 自动对每个 Facebook 资料进行高级搜索。在线视频下载器 下载 Facebook 视频。Skopenow： 社交媒体调查--姓名、电话、电子邮件、用户名搜索。Instagram。Websta： 使用带有位置 ID 的直接 URL，如 websta.me/location/116231。StoriesIG：下载 Instagram 消息的工具。保存 Instagram 故事： 允许你在保存的故事中执行用户名搜索。Tumblr。Tumblr 原创： 查找每个 Tumblr 的原始帖子，因此不包括转发。Twitter。Onemilliontweetmap：每个地点的推文地图，最长可显示 6 小时，并提供关键字搜索选项。Treeverse： 可视化 Twitter 会话的 Chrome 浏览器扩展。Tweetreach：查找推文范围。提供与谷歌高级搜索相同的高级搜索运算符！Twitter 高级搜索：查找日期、关键词等。Twitter 基于地理位置的搜索：地理编码： [坐标]，[半径-公里]，例如：geocode： 36.222285,43.998233,2kmTwlets： 在 Excel 工作表中下载任何人的推文、关注者和点赞信息，使用简单快捷，而且还有 Chrome 浏览器扩展功能。YouTube地理搜索工具： 按地点搜索 YouTube 视频。交通信息航空。FlightRadar24：这是最常用的。可追踪（民用）航班。ADS-B Exchange Global Radar：跟踪航班，包括一些军用飞机。用户可使用的数据包括：航班号、飞机移动速度、飞行高度和目的地。该服务有多个移动应用程序版本，包括免费、高级 3D 和增强现实版本。 网络浏览器可以访问航班跟踪地图和数据库。海洋MarineTraffic：这是一个基于社区的开放项目，提供船舶移动的实时信息以及船舶在港口和码头的当前位置。船舶信息数据库包括船舶建造地点、船舶尺寸、总吨位和国际海事组织编号等详细信息。铁路火车 欧洲铁路网的完整互动地图。想想 "一带一路" ......日期和时间确定信息真实性的科学方法SunCalc：显示特定地点的太阳在某一天的移动情况。橙色的细曲线是当前的太阳轨迹，其周围的黄色区域是太阳轨迹在一年中的变化情况。点越靠近中心，太阳就越高出地平线。上面时间滑块上的颜色显示了太阳在一天中的覆盖范围。从一段视频或多张自称连续的照片中推断发布者的身份和说法的真实性。Wolfram|Alpha： 它的特点是能够直接向用户返回答案，而不是像传统搜索引擎那样提供一系列可能包含用户正在寻找的答案的相关网页。数据来源包括学术网站和出版物、商业网站和公司、科学组织等。Web**安全DNS Trails： 世界上最大的 DNS 历史数据存储库。该网站可访问包含约 3 万亿条 DNS 记录、30 亿条 WHOIS 记录和 4.18 亿个主机名的数据库。自 2008 年年中以来，该网站每天都会收集所有这些数据。Censys.io： 全面了解联网设备！ Censys 持续监控互联网上所有可访问的服务器和设备，因此您可以实时搜索和分析它们，了解您的网络攻击面，发现新威胁并评估其全球影响。Geo IP 工具： 这是为你准备的。检查你自己的 IP，轻松检查你的 VPN 是否正常工作。SpyOnWeb： 用于通过网站跟踪代码检索网站。该网站不断获取网站跟踪代码、域名服务器和其他信息，从而帮助显示网站之间的连接。Whois：用于域名搜索和信息，whois.net 或 whois.icann.orgArchive.DMCA：搜索删除通知。Wayback Machine：归档网站。从 Wayback Machine 下载整个网站。"Wayback Machine 是互联网档案馆的一个网络保存计划，实际上每天都在记录网络生态的变化。爬虫每周抓取超过 10 亿个网页！使用大量服务器和带宽提供服务，并尽量节省数据大小，你可以在这个网站上找到非常旧的网页备份。 Wayback Machine 还有一个被动的 "网页备份 "功能。Archive.is： Archive.is是一个私人资助的数字时间胶囊网站。根据版权所有者提出的符合《数字千年版权法案》（DMCA）的移除请求，存档网页会被移除。每个请求都会捕获网页的文本内容，加载一个没有活动元素、脚本或JavaScript生成的图像和框架的Web 2.0网站。 屏幕截图为 1024×768 像素，无弹出窗口。其他Hunch.ly： 自动收集所有访问过的网站！唯一一款专为在线调查设计的网络采集工具。 Hunchly会自动收集、记录和注释您访问的每个网页。这是一款功能强大的调查工具，但价格不菲。BlockExplore： 跟踪比特币线索或关注比特币账户。LittleSis： 一个免费的数据库，用于了解企业和政府层面的关系。一个将世界上最有权势的人和组织联系起来的基层监督网络，一个调查裙带关系、利益冲突和系统性腐败的独特资源！Lumen： 收集并分析法律投诉和删除网络材料的请求，帮助网民了解自己的权利并理解法律。这些数据使用户能够研究法律威胁的普遍性，并使网民能够看到内容删除的来源。Maltego：交互式数据挖掘工具，用于呈现有向图进行链接分析。用于在线调查，查找互联网上各种来源的信息之间的关系。功能非常强大！它不仅能自动收集所需信息，还能将收集到的信息可视化，并以异常美观的方式将结果呈现给用户。你可以看到很多有用的信息，如 DNS 信息、邮件服务器、IP、用户、电子邮件 ID、网络等。Pipl：全球最强大的人物搜索引擎，查找电子邮件地址、社交媒体用户名或电话号码背后的人，pipl.comTor Site Searcher：通过 clearnet 搜索隐藏的 Tor 站点。恶意 URL 测试器：测试未知 URL 的安全性。OpenCorporates： 它包含 1.38 亿家企业和 1.76 亿名员工的信息，并在不断更新！Zoopla： 使用英国领先的资源搜索房产。浏览待售和待租的房屋和公寓，查找任何地区的房产中介。中国人在全球买房，尤其是富人（你知道中国富人的钱都是从哪里来的），因此 ...... 它非常有用。DataBasic.io： 这些简单的工具可以让你轻松地以有趣的方式处理数据，让你学会如何寻找精彩的故事。DataWrapper：易于使用的图表和绘图工具。Google Fusion Tables： 数据融合表是谷歌为数据管理提供的一项网络服务。 数据存储在表格中，可供多个互联网用户查看和下载。开放式桌面语义搜索： 适合搜索非结构化数据。TrustServista：在线新闻验证和可视化工具！Namechk.com：使用用户名识别在线账户的好帮手。只需插入用户名，该工具就能识别使用该名称的所有用户的位置。II 识别论证中的错误常见的逻辑谬误[重要］学习本节的目的不是为了记住它们的定义，而只是为了了解哪些地方容易出现问题并在遇到它们时能够迅速做出反应。逻辑谬误是有缺陷的推理，会产生错误的论点，或错误地构建论点。避免逻辑谬误的最佳方法是首先学习最常见的谬误。 其次，同样重要的是评估自己的论证，看看自己的论证是否使用了逻辑谬误，如果是，是哪一种？ 这需要自我评估、分析和反思。 我们的目标是，在论证过程中（不是事后，而是在对话过程中），能够不断判断。 这需要对自己所说或所写的内容是否有说服力进行内部监控。了解和理解逻辑谬误很重要，因为它可以阻止不实之词的交流。 逻辑谬误的作用在于找出不真实的东西，一旦确定，论证就不再有效，希望（仅仅是希望）不再断言和/或相信。 需要注意的是，一个论证是无效的并不能说明另一种情况是正确的，需要防止虚假两难（False Dilemma） 。另一点是，有些非正式谬误很可能永远都是谬误，比如 "人身攻击 "谬误（Ad Hominem fallacy）。但对于例如 "滑坡"（Slippery Slope）来说，这种预言可能会成为现实，而这正是 "滑坡 "第一步的后果，此时它不再是谬误。 这就是某些非正式谬误的本质。 它们可能是错的，但也可能是对的。 这取决于问题所在。稻草人论证当你很难打败一个真人时，把对手换成一个稻草人，你就可以轻松打败它了，对吗？例如马克太太说："马克，该打扫车库了。"马克抗议道："什么？""又该打扫了？""难道我每天都要打扫车库吗？"马克的回答就犯了稻草人谬误，曲解了妻子的意思。预防：确保你清楚地了解对手的立场。 向对手重述一遍，并询问你所说的是否准确地表达了他们的论点立场。 这也可以防止他们日后改变立场。人身攻击这是指攻击一个人，包括其身份或个人性格（如外貌），而不是攻击其实际立场。 这在政治辩论中很常见。例如如果你认为宇宙背后的数学精度是随机建立的，那你就是个彻头彻尾的白痴。预防：重要的是要记住，一个人的弱点或优点与他的想法、建议、理论、观点、论断或论据的弱点或优点是不同的。滑坡谬误一种形式是 "如果允许 X 发生，Y 就会随之而来"，但事实上 "X 会导致 Y "是没有理由的。另一种形式是 "我们必须继续某种行动，因为我们已经开始了这个过程"。还有一种情况是，在事实上不需要精确界限的情况下，坚持在某个精确点划定这样一条界限。例如，当我们想到 X 时，我们可能会立即想到 Y，但这丝毫不意味着只要有 X 就一定会导致 Y。重复一遍，认为 Y 一定会在 X 之后出现是一种滑坡思维；如果没有具体理由认为 Y 一定会在 X 之后出现，那就是犯了滑坡谬误。然而，"滑坡 "并不总是或一定是谬误。 它只是根据最初的步骤和情况做出预测。例如1.如果你现在上课走神，你的考试成绩就会很差，如果成绩很差，你就考不上大学，如果考不上大学，你的人生就会一事无成。2.尽管这只股票一直在亏损，但我们已经投资了好几年了，如果现在抛掉它，就会前功尽弃。3.显而易见的是，如果我们给某人 5000 万美元，每次给一美元（当然要快--也许我们有一个分配器），她就会富有。但是，根据划界论证，如果我们不能确定哪一美元使她富有，那么无论我们给她多少钱，她都不可能富有。预防：想一想你是否真正理解了因果关系或因果故事，你是不是从事件的顺序中推断出了原因。 如果你意识到自己不知道现象的原因，最好的办法就是暂停判断，直到知道原因为止。有时，"斜坡 "很长：如果实行 X，就会导致 Y；如果实行 Y，就会导致 Z；如果实行 Z，就会导致 ...... 最终的灾难性后果。为了避免陷入这种谬误，有必要对每一个可能的连续步骤进行论证和说明。负载问题每当一个人提出一个问题，其中包括他所期望的结果，与回答问题的人的立场背道而驰时，就会出现这种情况。每个问题都依赖于假设，即使是像 "现在几点了？"这样简单的问题也依赖于假设，比如听者能听懂你的话，并且有办法知道时间。例如"你还在打你的妻子吗？" 无论对方回答 "是 "或 "否"，都会被诬陷为打老婆的人，无论他们是否打老婆。预防：补充论证（“前提”中的“假设”部分），见文末部分。乞题（循环论证）当听众被要求接受有争议的结论时，当为支持该结论而提出的前提同样受到争议时，当在有争议的原始结论基础上为该前提提供进一步支持时，就犯了乞求问题的谬误。例如有些人说他们能证明上帝的存在，当被问及如何证明时，他们回答说："《圣经》说得很清楚，上帝一定存在。当被问及我们为什么要相信《圣经》时，他们回答说："因为《圣经》是上帝自己的神作，所以它一定是真的："因为《圣经》是上帝的杰作，所以它一定是真的"。预防：尝试在双方达成共识的基础上论证这一论断。尝试发现共识作为论证的合适起点，是整个理性论证事业的重要基石。虚假两难作为一种非正式的谬误，当论辩者提出一个立场只有两种可能的选择或结果，而实际上有更多的选择时，就会出现这种情况。 这是一种论证策略，旨在引导人们有意选择狭隘而具体的选项。例如保守派反对进一步提高二氧化硫排放标准，而自由派则指责他想放宽标准。一位民主党女议员说她反对减税，而她的共和党对手则指责她想加税。预防：想想你正在考虑的方案是否确实穷尽了所有的可能性，或者是否还有其他合理的可能性需要考虑。 在将可能性清单缩小到只有两种或一种之前，先考虑一下替代方案。有偏差的概括如果样本只是道听途说，那么你就犯了一种草率概括的谬误：道听途说谬误。例如这只比特犬咬人，因此所有比特犬都咬人。预防：在提出主张之前，要考虑证据是什么，样本量有多大，是否足以代表整体。诉诸大众舆论（带头谬误)这是指利用流行观点来创建论点，并依靠谣言来获得支持。 它试图激起听众的情绪和兴奋，而不是阐明论点。 例如随大流论点： 这种方法声称，因为大多数人都相信某个论点或选择了某条路线，所以它一定是真的，其他人也应该相信它。爱国论证： 这种说法认为某种观点是正确的，因为它体现了爱国主义，而那些不同意的人则是不爱国的，这意味着他们的观点是无效的。势利论： 这种观点认为，如果那些在社会上或经济上声誉卓著的人相信某种观点，那么这种观点就一定是正确的。预防：批判性思考。 考虑你的立场、需求或观点与周围人的不同之处，寻找可靠的信息来源，慢慢做出决定。诉诸权威依靠表面（而非真正）权威的观点来确定陈述或论点的真实性。例如理查德-朗（Richard Long）是新西兰一位受人尊敬的退休新闻播音员，曾在汉诺威金融公司（Hanover Finance）的广告宣传中出镜。 朗没有金融专业知识。预防：诉诸权威与良好的逻辑和批判性思维的基本原则相冲突，后者要求我们承担起评估自己信念依据的责任。 仅仅因为别人告诉我们某个信念是真的，我们就接受它，这是一种逃避良好逻辑和批判性思维的方式。然而，有时候，良好的逻辑和批判性思维本身就会引导我们依靠真正的权威。 这不是回避逻辑思维和批判性思维：这是在推理一个与我试图解决的问题间接相关的问题。诉诸虚无又称 "滔滔不绝 "谬误，是一种反驳，它以被动的批评回应一种主张，而不是回应主张本身。 例如"你没有足够的经验成为新的领导者"。 "你也没有！"预防：有人也是这一事实并不能掩盖所讨论的观点或做法的正确性，你应该把注意力集中在错误本身上。诉诸无知声称某件事一定是真的，因为它还没有被证明是假的。 也可以声称某件事情一定是假的，因为它还没有被证明是真的。 这也被称为举证责任谬误。 例如我们的阁楼里一定住着小精灵，因为没有人证明我们的阁楼里没有小精灵。预防：避免在写作中诉诸无知的最佳方法是将重点放在现有的证据上，而不是缺乏证据可能意味着什么。 不过，也有一些非谬误的无知诉求。如果有资格的研究人员使用精心设计的方法长期寻找某种东西，但没有成功，而这种东西是人们应该能够找到的，那么他们没有找到这种东西的事实就可能构成某种证据，证明这种东西并不存在。有些实践（如法律）要求我们在达到一定的证明标准之前拒绝接受某项主张：例如，在排除合理怀疑证明有罪之前，推定被告是无罪的。因果谬误仅凭二者之间存在相关性这一事实，就被用来证明一事物是另一事物的原因。而事实上，它们可能是相反的或没有因果关系。例如研究证明，老年人的健康与有规律的性生活之间存在相关性。因此，性生活可以促进身体健康。（如果是因为身体健康才可能有规律的性生活呢？）预防：与其假定相关性反映了因果关系（或缺乏相关性反映了缺乏因果关系），不如问问自己，是什么不同的因素可能导致了这种相关性--以及这些因素是否以及如何偏离了你所看到的关系。权威机构是否是真正的权威机构：他们是专家吗？他们是否在自己真正权威的领域提供建议？ (我们应该听取演员关于表演的意见，而不是关于投资或医学的意见）。该领域的权威是否达成广泛共识？ 如果没有，我们就不应该仅仅因为某个权威说 X 是真的而决定相信 X，因为其他真正的权威也说 X 不是真的。权威人士的言论是否真诚（他们可能是因为收了钱才认可的），他们是否有明显的偏见？只有在上述四个问题的答案都是 "是 "的情况下，你才应该接受权威人士认可的说法，即便如此，我们也应该只在自己无法评估该说法的证据时才这样做。修辞从技术上讲，它们不是谬误，但它们可以通过激起你的愤怒、同情或恐惧来减少你的怀疑，从而使你无法仔细思考，从而具有说服力。事实上，任何困难的任务都离不开情感的支持和力量。但是重要的是要区分好相关的唤起情感和无关的情感诉求，以避免在形成信念的过程中降低理性。从愤怒中 "论证 "愤怒并不等同于谬误，有时愤怒是非常恰当的。但是，当我们愤怒或愤怒到一定程度时，我们往往会变得不合逻辑。第一种表现是，在没有实际理由生气的情况下，我们会错误地认为自己被告知了生气的理由。不能因为某件事情令人愤怒就认为它是不正确的，即使被愤怒的人是我们自己。第二种表现是，一个事件引起的愤怒可能会影响我们对另一个无关事件的评价。如果我们对诋毁者的动机感到愤怒，我们必须记住，批评者的动机和批评本身是否恰当是相互独立的，动机不纯并不妨碍批评的正确性。同样，即使一个人做了让我们恼火的事情，我们也不能以此为由低估这个人的其他方面，也不能低估其他人。例如，中国官方引导的网络平台喜欢把社会问题归咎于美国或资本主义，煽动民族主义情绪。恐吓策略试图吓唬人们去做某事或接受某种立场是一种恐吓。诉诸武力的论点是一种特殊的恐吓。无论使用的是常规恐吓手段还是非常规恐吓手段，为了让人们在某一问题上采取某种立场而以恐惧代替推理和判断都是一种谬误。同样，当别人在我们面前实施这种策略时，我们屈服于这种策略也是一种谬误。当然，在面临真正的威胁时，人们有理由谨慎行事，即使他们在情况不再令人尴尬时并没有意识到这一点。恐惧也很容易让我们感到困惑，在恐惧的时候，我们很容易犯与愤怒时同样的错误。为了避免把我们对某些事物的恐惧转移到对无关事物的评价上，我们需要弄清楚我们的恐惧是关于什么的。合理的警告不是不着边际的恐吓策略。例如，一个可爱（脆弱）的婴儿呆在汽车轮胎轮辋里的特写镜头，任何人看了都会感到不安，看完这则广告后，合理的做法是检查我们的汽车轮胎。但米其林商家的广告诉求是：请购买米其林轮胎！这不是合理的警告，而是采用了恐吓策略。诉诸同情心的论据对某人的同情会让我们在一些无关的事情上坚持某种立场，而这种立场可能是不合理的。嫉妒的论据同情会诱使我们强化某人的长处，而嫉妒则会诱使我们夸大某人的短处。当我们因嫉妒而指责某人时，我们就陷入了嫉妒论证。阿谀奉承自我优越感使我们特别容易受到奉承的影响，它一方面会使我们夸大自己的成就和能力，另一方面又会使我们做出其他无关的判断。合理化当人们用虚假的借口来满足自己的欲望或利益时，就会犯下合理化的谬误。无论他们提到的理由是否存在，掩盖自己真实的欲望就是这种谬误。以错制错如果一种行为是错误的，那么它就是错误的。声称是对某种错误的报复并不能使其合理。如果认为对不法行为的任何报复都是正当的，就像极端民族主义者想要屠杀侵略过他们的国家的人民一样，那显然是一种谬论；如果报复的对象不是先前犯下不法行为的人（比如不法行为者的兄弟或子女），那也是一种谬论。III 信息来源上面讨论的事实核查是在你有充足的时间和精力，而且一件事对你很重要的情况下进行的。而在更多的情况下，你不应该花大量的时间去做这些无聊的事情。例如，你想弄清楚霍金是否去过爱泼斯坦的岛屿，像中国自媒体大规模声称的一样，但爱泼斯坦案件的每一批法庭文件都有成百上千页，你不会有像BBC或卫报记者那样大量翻阅的耐心和精力的。选择可靠信息来源能够有效节省你的时间，减少被不可靠的消息困扰。选择可信的媒体任何媒体都有真和假的信息，但这并不意味着你必须阅读所有的媒体。 垃圾中可能有黄金，但你不能指望每天都能在垃圾中找到黄金，更有可能是你把垃圾误认为黄金了。世界新闻自由指数（WPFI）WPFI in Wikipedia一般来说，得分低于 55 分的国家的新闻媒体更有可能被操纵，通过虚假或选择性宣传来达到政府的目的。如果事件不发生在这些国家，对于那些想节省时间的人来说，他们可以直接选择其他国家的媒体来获取信息。注意：WPFI 只涉及新闻自由，并不衡量所评估国家的新闻质量。值得信赖的媒体的特点可核实的事实和统计数据，而不是谣言或胡乱的说法。"听起来对 "或似乎证实了你已经相信的东西，并不意味着它实际上是真实的。引用信息来源--就像在研究论文中引用信息来源一样，网络新闻也应该这样做。确保他们没有捏造或选择性报道。URL直接以".edu "和".gov "结尾的信息来源相对可信，但要注意".edu.me "等域名不可信。网站应该有一个 "关于我们 "或类似的标签，让你了解更多关于他们的信息。表达观点的人是谁？ 他或她是主题专家还是专业记者？如果不是，或者如果你找不到作者是谁，请谨慎相信这些材料。避免不可靠的消息来源与国家有关或由国家控制的新闻机构，尤其是新闻自由程度低的国家的国家媒体，如中国的新华社、朝鲜的朝鲜中央通讯社和伊朗的新闻电视台。 它们可能是宣传机构。 前身为 "今日俄罗斯 "的 RT 和其他由俄罗斯政府资助的媒体，如 Sputnik News，也被描述为政府的宣传渠道。 在西方国家，官方资助的媒体一般都要接受公众监督和严格的信息核实，因此出现假新闻的可能性较小。然而，作为利益相关者，它们可能会删除对政府不利的言论。来自社交媒体 在社交媒体上自称为专业人士并不难，这就为传播混乱信息提供了可能，尤其是观点鲜明但缺乏证据或证据不足的新闻。一般来说，应谨慎使用小报，如《太阳报》、《每日镜报》及同类电视节目，尤其是《每日邮报》和《星期日快报》更应谨慎对待。无一例外，切勿使用 Infowars 等阴谋论网站。内容农场是指快速生产大量网络文章以吸引流量，从而获得商业利益（如广告费），或达到特定目的（如控制舆论或引领潮流）的网站。它们通常利用搜索引擎来获得吸引眼球的点击量，现在也可以以账号的形式出现在短视频等平台上。尽管如此，它们大多缺乏可靠来源、质量低劣、信息量不大、传播误导性信息、翻译错误，而且往往夹杂着大量广告或恶意程序。常见不可信媒体列表同样，无需记住，但要小心当你看到一个鲜为人知或可疑的媒体时，最好进行网络搜索或查看列表，以确定其可信度假新闻网站与新闻讽刺网站（本文提到过）不同，它们主要以盈利为目的传播虚假信息，甚至可能冒充权威媒体。List of fake news websites讽刺性新闻网站这些网站的设置本身并没有什么问题，但中国的一些事实核查媒体喜欢引用耸人听闻的东西 这些网站不会像马和企鹅那样开始抗议，但会有更多类似 "贝索斯的中国养女每周有 5 万美元的零花钱，如果花不完就会受到惩罚 "这样难以区分的事情出现。List of satirical news websites主要针对中国人环球时报、观察者、中国日报、日人民日报......好吧，我觉得你至少应该避开所有中国官方媒体，再加上中国的自媒体。IV 其他初始可信度判断当你阅读信息时，你会对其真实性进行猜测，这就是初始可信度。如果信息与你所知道的真实情况或常识一致，你就会赋予其较高的初始可信度。我建议进行以下分析：文章传达了什么信息？它（想）给我什么感觉？ / 他们想要达到什么目标？他们从哪里获得信息？ / 是否提供了直接可靠的证据？（如果没有提供证据）我自己能识别吗？避免干扰初始可信度聊天软件或转发信息的截图不能作为有力证据 这很容易伪造，你甚至不需要有两个账户，因为网上有截图生成器。图片可能不是真的 除了照片合成等常见的造假手段外，在信息中附上无法核实的图片也可能造假。例如，在中国的社交媒体平台上，有人发布了大量死鱼的照片，声称是日本核废水造成的。然而，没有证据表明这些照片是在日本拍摄的，这些照片看起来更像是电击捕鱼的场景。小心所谓的专家 社交媒体上那些西装革履、站在书架前自信满满的人不一定是专家。你应该注意他们的学历（在权威机构）和从业经验（不等于长期从事该行业）。其次是他们的成就、声誉以及在所从事领域的地位。注：作为某一领域的专家，并不意味着他们有资格就其他领域的事务发表意见利益相关者的话可信度较低 对于产品而言，公司发言人比用户更有可能说假话，对吗？利益相关者的话需要比无利益相关者的话更仔细地审查（或至少质疑）。当利害关系相关时，即使试图保持客观，也很容易失去客观性。注意重复 戈培尔说过，宣传的本质就是重复。中国也有句老话，三人成虎。重复的信息更容易给人留下真实的印象，这就是为什么公司喜欢让不同的人为他们在不同的平台上发广告。这样，当你需要购买一件商品时，你首先想到的是你反复看过的那件，即使还有其他广受认可、价格合理的产品。幸运的是，这种对人的影响可能比购买昂贵的东西时要小。谨慎使用社交媒体去年，我停止使用并清除了 Twitter、Instagram、Facebook 等社交媒体上的信息。出于同样的原因，我想之后我使用社交媒体的频率也会大幅降低。 如果你也有同样的困扰，也可以试试。阅读更多除了自费出版的书籍外，其他书籍的出版也需要严格审查，这至少可以确保书籍的质量比你在论坛或社交媒体上看到的人为垃圾要好。我推荐阅读既不枯燥又不理论化的书籍，既可以是政治学、历史学、社会心理学、量子物理学等方面的科普读物，也可以是例证丰富、讲解详尽的专业著作或教科书。因为它们的读者群知识储备丰富，很难被忽悠，所以这类略显专业的书籍更容易给读者带来有价值的东西。阅读之前，想想你需要什么，有针对性的阅读包含过滤和筛选，有效减轻记忆负担，从而使真正有用的东西更容易被记住。在阅读这类书籍时，你需要思考和吸收其中复杂的论点和情节。 同时，这类书籍的作者很大一部分都是善于思辨的人，你可以从他们身上学到他们采取什么角度、选择什么证据、如何论证自己的观点。 总之，你可以学习他们的思维方式，让自己不自觉地用这种方式思考问题。阅读后，可以梳理自己所学来深化理解。 这篇文章就是一个例子 。 之前博客中提到，系统表述也是一种学习，如果你可以把这本书的重要内容严谨清晰地表达，说明你理解了，阅读的目的也就达到了。此外，阅读还能拓展知识面。 人类的知识浩如烟海，即使是某个领域的专家也不可能完全掌握该领域的知识，想要精通所有领域的知识是不现实的。因此，我的策略是掌握多个领域的知识（但不一定要精通所有领域的知识），这样当你看到一件事时，你更可能知道该从哪个角度看问题，需要补充哪些信息，以及如何将这些信息作为前提关联到结论。有意识地练习当你读到一个观点时，无论是新闻、社交媒体还是教科书，都要了解它的前提、结论和论证过程，并思考一些问题结论：哪些词有歧义？哪些是描述性假设（描述性假设是对世界过去、现在和将来的看法，是作者对事实的观点，如果不符合事实，前提就有问题）？什么是价值观假设（未阐明，但基于价值观的预设。它们可能因国家、社会或个人而异，同一个人可能同时有相反的想法，这取决于它们被接受的程度）？哪些结论可能是合理的？论点：推理中是否存在谬误？前提:这些证据的可信度如何？忽略了什么重要信息？关于是否补充对方的论证：需要许多作者出于省时省力、掩盖缺陷或误导等原因，喜欢隐藏前提，即提出 "假设"。假设包括定义、价值观和认知。非批判性思维者很容易忽视这一点，但对我们来说，挖掘前提是发现论证漏洞的重要一步。批判性思维和独立思考是一种意识，也是一种能力，这种东西很难通过别人的描述来学习，你需要逐渐建立一个审视各种论点（自己的或别人的）的过程。本文只是当代情境下的批判性思维指南，正如开头所说，本文可能只是开始，但绝不是结束。后记二十多天前，我就开始构思这篇文章，但由于课余时间太少，加上其他事情，我把它搁置了很久，在此期间，我几乎被我的待办事项清单逼疯了。真正查资料、写文章的时间大概花了六个小时，可能有些仓促。与专业著作相比，文章也比较简短，缺乏实例和分析。如有不足之处，欢迎大家提出修改意见。不过我足以引以为傲了。尽管有相当一部分内容是复制粘贴得到，但本文可能是中文互联网上唯一整合了如此多必要信息的实用手册，这些具体内容也几乎没有，只能在编程随想等少数几个网站上找到。参考文献：Wikipedia Critical Thinking by Moore, Brooke Noel, Parker, RichardAsking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking by M. Neil Browne, Stuart M. KeeleyMACDONALD-KELCE LIBRARY in The University of TampaIndeed.comGrammarly.comSuccessfulstudent.org
Stay Sagacious in the World Filled with Arguments, Lies and Partially Selected Truths
AI摘要：**Summary** This article, written by an independent thinker, presents practical tips and resources for individuals to navigate the complex and often misleading information landscape. The author emphasizes the importance of fact-checking, source evaluation, and identifying logical fallacies and rhetorical tricks. Additionally, the article provides a comprehensive list of tools and techniques for verifying information, including fact-checking websites, search operators, image and video forensics tools, and social media verification tools. The author also discusses the importance of avoiding unreliable sources, such as state-controlled media, sensationalist websites, and social media posts. Additionally, the author recommends developing initial credibility judgments and using social media cautiously. The article concludes by highlighting the value of reading diverse materials and practicing critical thinking skills consciously.Powered by CatGPT.A Practical Guide to Independent Thinking and Critical ThinkingThis article has a large number of words and complex content.Therefore, I wrote it in Chinese and English, with the English version being translated and polished after completion, and the Chinese version being re-translated from the English version.Tools used in writing: DeepL Translate, DeepL WriteIt is not that people suffer because they have replaced thinking with laughter, but because they don't know why they laugh and why they stop thinking. Huxley, Brave New World9.15.2024 Update: Fortunately but unfortunately, I found a fact check manual (with only chinese version available)which contained many useful tricks this passage not have. And i felt iwrote this article in vain. Anyhow, it's still worth reading and i hope these could complement each other.Reason for writingA few months ago, I read two books on critical thinking, and my awareness of the complexity of information in the online environment prompted me to write a blog about it.However, this would only be a mechanical reproduction of the books, which would result in a dull article, and I didn't want to publish something like that on my blog.Recently, this coincided with the relaunch of my blog.Because independent thinking has been a concern of mine for some time, and because of the lack of rationality and objectivity around me due to my classmates' and family members' blind faith in Internet propaganda, whether commercial or political, I had the idea of organizing my own strategies for dealing with the lies and hypocrisy of the Internet.I followed China's dissatisfaction with Japan's discharge of nuclear wastewater and Russia's glorification of war, and found that much of this propaganda comes from lies and competing truths. All one needs is some basic facts, some rigorous thinking or even just some common sense, and the lies wouldn't be so prevalent, which is unfortunately what people are missing.Teachers or the media may emphasize the importance of both to you, but they likely won't tell you exactly what to do.It is even possible that even they themselves are not sure.But these, will be given in this article.Sparing you of the lies is not difficult, and you don't need to have the acumen of a citizen investigator, the rigor of a professor of logic, or the erudition of a scholar of history.This article is about organizing the basic knowledge and tools you need to check and think about and judge the information you receive.Remember, practice is much more than theory when it comes to these elements.This article may be the beginning of the road to independent thinking, but it will never be the end.What are critical thinking and independent thinking?Why are they?P.S. If you look it up in English, you'll find that in the West, critical thinking and independent thinking are mixed up and both are critical thinking. but the focus of this article is not on their difference or inclusive relationship, but on how they are used.I hadn't planned to write this section, but in the course of my writing this article, I've learned that it's not redundant to explain the two concepts clearly.Also, in my last reblogged post, I mentioned that systematically writing out your opinion is also a learning experience.I asked my deskmate "What do you think independent thinking and critical thinking are respectively?"To my surprise, he simply answered "not changing one's opinion because of others" and "being able to identify weaknesses in other people's opinions".Well, that's partially true, but it's far from the true meaning of these two wonderful concepts.Independent thinking doesn't mean being stubborn, critical thinking doesn't mean simply picking out mistakes, and it's not limited to opinions.Independent thinking means that an individual analyzes, judges, and evaluates independently of outside influences and develops his or her own unique insights and perspectives when confronted with a problem, information, or viewpoint.Critical Thinking: it criticizes our thinking in forming opinions, making judgments, making decisions, and forming conclusions, subjecting the thinking process to rational assessment.I.e., for thinking about thinkingI must admit, as a bit of a rebel, I was excited to learn these two concepts for the first time.What I thought was that I could find understanding and support for myself in these seemingly specialized narratives.However, just after I read the first chapter of the book Critical Thinking, my perception changed and I began to see it as an important tool.From avoiding being provoked by nationalistic propaganda from the authorities to avoiding over-consumption due to the propaganda of commercial companies, from leaving self-publishing media where we want to be noticed to reducing the spread of rumors among our friends and family, we all want to be able to avoid making or accepting bad arguments.We also want to exclude extraneous factors, we want to not let our emotions dominate our thoughts, we want to not fall victim to fallacies and biases, and we want to not listen to incompetent authorities or half-assed assumptions.The less you make these mistakes, the wiser you will be.Not in the sense that you get savvier on a momentary basis, but in the sense that you are wiser overall.These skills can be applied to any area where you use your mind (speaking, thinking, writing).I Fact-checkingFor facts that are not well described in some messages but are really important to youDistinguish between conclusions and facts Facts: objective statements that are true. Opinion: a subjective statement. p.s. Assertions about facts:not necessarily true, but rather their truth is not subjectiveCheck Wikipedia for overviewWikipedia started in 2001. It has matured over the past 23 years to become a trusted resource on the internet, and is the only not-for-profit platform of the most visited websites. All information ‘must be presented accurately and without bias’, sources must come from a third party, and a Wikipedia article can only be created if there has been ‘third-party coverage of the topic in reliable sources’. Popular articles are reviewed thousands of times and it’s virtually impossible, for instance, for conspiracies to remain published on Wikipedia. Some media experts argue that because of this painstaking process, a highly edited article on Wikipedia might be the most reliable source of information ever created (Bruckman, 2022). By comparison, traditional academic articles – the most common source of scientific evidence – are typically only peer-reviewed by up to three people and then never edited again.Less frequently edited articles on Wikipedia might be less reliable than popular ones. But it’s easy to find out how an article has been created and modified on Wikipedia. All modifications to an article are archived in its ‘history’ page. Disputes between editors about the article’s content are documented in its ‘talk’ page. As with the previously mentioned characteristics, for news, it may lack objectivity and may not even be immediate, but for something that has been happening for a while, it is likely to be accurate.Some common falsificationsFor Quoted Facts: Since there are many fake news sites that mimic the domain names of normal news sites, you're better off using a search engine to search for them rather than clicking on links.Prevention of fabricated experts/organizations: Several of China's largest media outlets once fictionalized a Swiss scientist named Wilson Edwards to support their claims about a pandemic.They ran this person's social media accounts at the same time.The Swiss embassy later said there was no such scientist.A web search also did not reveal any papers published by this person.To prevent this, you can't just look at accounts on platforms such as X. You should follow Linkedin and the papers they publish, etc.Concerned about the date of publication of the quoted information: For some time-sensitive matters, such as unemployment rates and the state of the economy, some news outlets will mislead you with outdated information.Look up the original text and check the key words： This is a rudimentary but effective form of falsification.A typical example is the Chinese media's description of the fact that 90% of Ukrainians found the peace talks acceptable, whereas the original text was unacceptable.This news was widely believed and forwarded by netizens.Falsifying statements or positions of others (experts, etc.)： For the beginner independent thinker, when you look up this expert, it is true, and then you may believe it to be true.What you need to focus on is not only the identity of that authority, but also what he has said and what his position is.You can do this by looking up his social media, meeting minutes, etc.SearchConventional searchHave you heard of the search operator?It makes the search more focused I think that knowing how to use the search operator is what really makes you a good searcher.Here are some of those useful operators.Basic operatorsThese basic operators are mostly Boolean operators that work with other search engines (like Bing or Yandex) or with other Google services (like Gmail ,Drive , and YouTube)."Theme ": strict match.You can use this search operator to find specific forms of terms (plural or singular only) or to exclude synonym searches.Theme A|Theme B: Finds pages related to one or the other theme or both. Also available as Theme A OR Theme B-Theme:Removes items containing specific keywords from search results."Theme ": is a wildcard.Returns results that are missing one or more terms specified in the query. Note that both * and "" must be included.Number A..Number B: Finds results with a specified range of numbers.Advanced OperatorsDO NOT put a space after colon :site:example.com :Will return results limited to the specified site.This is very common.related:example.com :Will return sites that Google recognizes as related.It may not always be accurate, for example it will find my site relevant to Harvard University.cache:example.com :Will return the latest cached version of the specified (if indexed) URL. This is useful for investigating some sites that have recently changed.filetype:example.com : Limits the results to the specified file type.Useful for digging into some filesallintitle:example.com : Returns results where all the specified words appear in the titleallintext:example.com :Returns a web page containing all the specified wordssource:example.com :Searches only the content of the specified sourcelocation: :Returns content about a specific geographic location.Mixed Use Cases"[unique string of words from your website]" -site:[your domain] : Identify other sites that cite or plagiarize.If there are no results then it is normal.[term] filetype:[file extension] site:[domain researched] : Some sites have files indexed that may not be visible to the public.It is also one of the ways to dig up trade secrets.For X(Twitter)You can use Advanced Search easily .Image searchFor images on social platforms, they may not perform well, but for the most part it's worth trying.Google:Can search for images that are related to the most obvious element of the image.For example images that all contain a house .The downside is that if the subject of the image search is not very clear, you may not get high quality results.The search also restricts itself to a theme, so assuming the input is photos of houses near mountains and lakes, you will not see photos with houses located near mountains and lakes, but instead get visually similar houses, which do not take into account the background of lakes or mountains.Yandex:Provides other sizes of the same image, visually similar images, and many results with similar images on the page.It is the best search engine for face matching and location recognition, and responds well to images on social mediaBing: Recognizes elements in a photo and finds images that contain all of those elements, or you can crop the photo as you like and see real-time results.Will be very useful for high-quality images with multiple recognizable subjects.TinEye: Provides visually similar photos, and other photos with identical compositions.It performs better with purely digital media (avatars, logos, etc.) than other platforms. can look for a person's different platform accountVerification toolsFact Search WebsitesGoogle Fact Check ToolsSnopes.comOne of the oldest debunking sites on the Internet, Snopes.com focuses on urban legends, news stories and memes.This site categorizes a series of rumors on the Internet by their truth or falsity.It usually also provides a survey of the history of those rumors and the nature of the rumors. They also cite their sources at the end of each debunking.TruthorFictionA site that pursues facts and debunks hoaxes.Although the analysis of events is not as comprehensive as snopes.com, it is still a very trustworthy site overall.ConsumerreportsEvaluates consumer issues and consumer products including health care and money management.The site is free of ads and often takes a step back to avoid biased views.Its assessments and analyses are meticulous and rigorous.This organization also purchases some consumer products just as consumers do.Washington Post Fact CheckerPolitifactThe Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact researches the claims of politicians and checks their accuracyFactCheck.orgThis website is a product of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC).The site is completely politically neutral and criticizes any political commentary that distorts the facts.Browser ExtensionsChrome Fake News Detector Simple extension that shows an alert when you visit a site known for spreading fake news.Chrome Know News Monitors for unreputable sites and displays a browser notification based on a reliability score (1-10)Search By Image Powerful image search pluginOSINT ToolsMaps But not only mapsBing Maps: Microsoft satellite and mapping service.Has faster, higher-resolution imagery than Google; drawback is that it's harder to check the date of the imageryGoogle Earth Pro: Adds Bing Maps satellite image layers.Advantage is that it has historical images.Mapchecking: Calculates the number of people in a selected Google map area.Click on the map to add points and plot the area.Good for rallies, mass events, or disaster relief ...... and more.HERE WeGo: For investigating events in the Middle East, it has satellite imagery more recent than Google.NASA EarthData: WorldView allows visualization of near real-time imagery from NASA.The advantages are many, with a variety of satellite and aerial imagery; extensive search criteria; and other mapping and visualization tools, such as FIRMS for fire incident investigations, to name a few.Access to more than a dozen NASA data centers and related satellite data products.NASA Earth Observations: 50+ datasets for atmosphere, land, ocean, energy, environment, etc.OpenStreetCam: as the name suggests.Geo-based searchLiveuamap: interactive real-time map of conflict news.Various countries available: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, USA, Ukraine, Venezuela, etc. Countries that other tools can't dig up are available here.Photo-Map.RU: Can check geo-tagged VKontakte posts.Works the same as SnRadar.Twitter: Insert geocode: [coordinates], [radius-km] in the search box, e.g. geocode:36.222285,43.998233,2km (only works with km, so 500m = 0.5km) Most of the time you can find what you want.The downside is that the location can be easily faked and needs to be combined with other information to verify.WarWire: Geo-location based search.Verifies posts from social media like Twitter, VKontakte, InstagramImages, video and metadataImage Forensics: Web-based image forensics tool.Easily identifies forged or doctored images.Public access only.FotoForensics: An image forensics tool.Web-based, easy to use.The downside is that it is only publicly accessible.Jeffrey's Image Metadata Viewer: A tool for extracting metadata online.Only need a web browser can be.But also only public access.Foca: extract metadata.Windows-based, open source in 2017.The disadvantage is that there is no native linux support (need to install wine in linux)Irfanview: a tool for extracting metadata.Windows-based. disadvantage is that it does not support Linux.InVID: This is a verification plugin to help journalists verify images and videos.Contextual data, metadata, reverse search (Google, Yandex), image forensics and more.Social MediaFacebookGraph.tips: automated advanced search of Facebook profiles.IntelTechniques: various tools for analyzing Facebook profiles and pages.Facebook livemap: Search live streams from all over the world.Search Tool: Find accounts by name, email, screen name and phone number.StalkScan: Automated advanced search for each Facebook profile.Video Downloader Online: Download Facebook videos.Skopenow: Social media survey - name, phone, email, username search.Instagram.Websta: Find other locations in the Instagram database near a specific location.Use direct URL with location ID, e.g. websta.me/location/116231StoriesIG: Tool to download Instagram messages.Save Instagram Stories: Allows you to perform username searches on saved stories.Tumblr.Tumblr Originals: Finds the original post for each Tumblr, thus excluding reblogs.Twitter.Onemilliontweetmap: tweet map each location up to 6 hours, keyword search option.Treeverse: Chrome extension to visualize Twitter conversations.Tweetreach: find the range of tweets.Provides advanced search operators, same as Google advanced search.We'll have a special post on Google's operators in the future!Twitter advanced search: find dates, keywords and more.Twitter geobased search: geocode: [coordinates], [radius-km], e.g.: geocode: 36.222285,43.998233,2kmTwlets: Download anyone's tweets, followers, and likes in an Excel worksheet.It's quick and easy to use, and there's a Chrome extension.Get up to 3,200 tweets, followers, and likes.YouTubeGeo Search Tool: Search YouTube videos by location.Transportation InformationAir.FlightRadar24: This one is the most used.Tracks (civilian) flights.ADS-B Exchange Global Radar: tracks flights, including some military aircraft.You get the idea.PlaneFinder: a UK-based real-time flight tracking service that displays data about flight overheads as well as global flights.Data available to users includes: flight number, speed at which the aircraft is moving, altitude traveled and destination.Several variants of the service are available as mobile applications, including free, premium 3D and augmented reality versions. Web browsers can access flight tracking maps and databases.SeaMarineTraffic: an open, community-based project that provides real-time information on ship movements and the current position of ships in ports and harbors.The ship information database includes, for example, details of where the ship was built and the ship's dimensions, gross tonnage and International Maritime Organization number.Rail.Trains: A complete interactive map of the railroad networks in Europe.Think "One Belt, One Road" ......Date and timeScientific method for determining the authenticity of informationSunCalc: shows the movement of the sun at a given location on a given day.The thin orange curve is the current sun track, and the yellow area around it is the change in sun track over the course of a year.The closer the point is to the center, the higher the sun is above the horizon.The color on the time slider above shows the sun's coverage during the day.The identity of the publisher and the veracity of the claims are inferred from a video or multiple photos claiming to be consecutive.Wolfram|Alpha: An online automated question and answer system from Wolfram Research.It features the ability to return answers directly to the user, rather than providing a series of related web pages that may contain the answer the user is looking for, as traditional search engines do.Data sources include academic sites and publications, commercial sites and companies, scientific organizations, and more.WebSecurityDNS Trails: The world's largest repository of historical DNS data.The site contains access to a database of approximately 3 trillion DNS records, 3 billion WHOIS records, and 418 million hostnames.All of this has been collected daily since mid-2008.Probably the most data returned for you.Free and easy to use.Censys.io: Complete knowledge of Internet-connected devices! Censys continuously monitors every accessible server and device on the Internet so you can search and analyze them in real time, understand your cyber-attack surface, discover new threats and assess their global impact.Drive security through data.Geo IP Tool: It's for you.Check your own IP and easily check if your VPN is working properly .SpyOnWeb: For retrieving websites through their tracking code.A website that constantly grabs website tracking codes, nameservers and other information so it can help show connections between websites.Whois: for domain name search and information, whois.net or whois.icann.orgArchiveDMCA: search for deletion notices.Wayback Machine: archive site.Download the entire site from the Wayback Machine."The Wayback Machine is a web preservation program of the Internet Archive, which is in fact documenting the changing ecology of the web on a daily basis.Crawlers crawl more than a billion web pages a week!Using a large number of servers, bandwidth to provide the service, and trying to save on data size, you can find very old backups of web pages on this site. The Wayback Machine also has a passive "web backup" feature.Archive.is: Archives any web page.A privately funded digital time capsule site.Archived pages are removed based on Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) compliant takedown requests from copyright owners.Each request captures the textual content of the page, loads a Web 2.0 site without active elements or scripts, or JavaScript-generated images and frames. The screenshot is 1024×768 pixels with no popups.OthersHunch.ly: Automatically collects all visited websites!The only web capture tool designed for online surveys. Hunchly automatically collects, records and annotates every web page you visit.A very powerful survey tool, for a price.BlockExplore: Track bitcoin leads or follow bitcoin accounts.LittleSis: A free database to learn about relationships at the business and government level.A grassroots watchdog network that connects the dots between the world's most powerful people and organizations.A unique resource for investigating cronyism, conflicts of interest and systemic corruption!Lumen: Collects and analyzes legal complaints and requests for removal of online material, helping Internet users know their rights and understand the law.This data enables users to research the prevalence of legal threats and allows Internet users to see the source of content removal.Maltego : Interactive data mining tool for presenting directed graphs for link analysis.Used in online surveys to find relationships between information from various sources on the Internet.Very powerful!Not only does it automatically collect the required information, but it also visualizes the collected information and presents the results to the user in an extraordinarily aesthetically pleasing way.You can see a lot of useful information, such as DNS information, mail servers, IPs, users, e-mail IDs, networks, etc.Pipl, the world's most powerful people search engine, find the person behind the email address, social media username or phone number, pipl.comTor Site Searcher: search for hidden tor sites via clearnet.You get the idea.Malicious URL Tester: test unknown URLs. for security.OpenCorporates: A database of companies around the world.It contains information on 138 million businesses and 176 million employees, and is constantly being updated!Zoopla: Search for properties using the UK's leading resource.Browse houses and apartments for sale and rent and find real estate agents in any area.The Chinese are buying houses worldwide, especially the rich (and you know where the rich Chinese get their money from) so ...... it's very useful.DataBasic.io: Web tools for beginners that introduce the concept of working with data.These simple tools make it easy to work with data in interesting ways, so you can learn how to find great stories to tell.The pages are cute haha.DataWrapper: easy to use charting and plotting tool.Google Fusion Tables: Data Fusion Tables is a web service provided by Google for data management. Fusion tables can be used to collect, visualize and share data tables.Data is stored in tables that can be viewed and downloaded by multiple Internet users.Open Desktop Semantic Search: Good for searching unstructured data.TrustServista: online news validation and visualization tool!Namechk.com: great for recognizing online accounts using usernames.Simply insert the username and this tool recognizes the location of all users using that name.II Identifying Errors in ArgumentationCommon Logical Fallacies [Important]The purpose of studying this section is not to memorize their definitions, but simply to be able to react quickly when you encounter them.*Logical Fallacies are flawed reasoning creating false arguments, or arguments constructed wrongly.The best way to avoid making logical fallacies is first to learn the most common fallacies. Secondly, and just as important, is to assess your own arguments, and see if the arguments you're making are using any logical fallacy, and if so, which one(s)? This requires self-assessment, analyses, and reflection. The goal is to be able to have an ongoing ability to determine this as the argument is being made(not after the fact, but while the conversation is occurring). It requires having an internal monitor as to the cogency of what you're saying or writing.Knowing and understanding logical fallacies is important because it stops the exchange of untruth. They're only so good as they root out what's not true, so that, when determined, an argument ceases to be valid, and hopefully(merely hopefully) ceases to be asserted and/or believed. One caveat is that there are certain informal fallacies that are likely always fallacious, such as the Ad Hominem fallacy.But for the Slippery Slope, that prediction may come true as a consequence of that first step down the slope. Such is the nature of some informal fallacies. They may be wrong, but they may also be right. It depends on what's at issue.Straw Man ArgumentWhen you're having a hard time beating a real person, replace your opponent with a scarecrow and you can beat it easily, right?It's the same in arguments .Eg.Mrs. Mark said, "Mark, it's time to clean the garage."Mark protested, "What?It's time to clean it again?Do I have to clean the garage every day?"Mark's response then commits the straw man fallacy by misrepresenting his wife's meaning.Prevention:Make sure that you understand your opponents position clearly. Restate it to the opponent and ask if what you stated is an accurate representation of their argument's position. This will also prevent against them changing their position later on.Ad Hominem ArgumentIt's attacking a person, which can include their identity or personal character (such as their physical appearance), instead of attacking their actual position. This is common in political debate.Eg.If you think the mathematical precision behind the universe is randomly established, you are a complete idiot.Prevention:What is important to remember is that the weaknesses or strengths in a person are not the same as the weaknesses or strengths in that person's ideas, suggestions, theories, opinions, assertions, or arguments.Slippery Slope FallacyOne form is "if X is allowed to occur, Y will follow".But in fact there is no reason why "X will lead to Y".Another form is "We must continue a certain action because we have already begun the process".There is also the insistence that such a line be drawn at some precise point on occasions when a precise line is not in fact necessary.The slippery slope argument is quite influential because mentally, one thing does often lead to another, even if logically it does not.For example, when we think of X, we may immediately think of Y. But this does not in any way imply that the mere presence of X must lead to Y. To repeat, to think that Y must follow X is to engage in slippery-slope thinking; if there is no specific reason to think that Y must follow X, then one is committing the slippery-slope fallacy.The Slippery Slope, however ,isn't always or necessarily fallacious. It is merely making predictions based on an initial step and circumstance.Eg.1.If you're distracted in class now you'll do poorly on your exams, and if you do poorly you won't get into college, and if you don't get into college you'll do nothing with your life.2.Despite the fact that this stock has been losing money, we have been investing in it for several years, and to dump it now would be a waste of previous efforts.3.The obvious thing is that if we give someone $50 million dollars, one dollar at a time (quickly, of course - maybe we have a dispenser), she is rich.However, according to the delimitation argument, if we can't determine which dollar makes her rich, she can't be rich no matter how much money we give her.Prevention:Think about whether you actually understand the causal agent or causal story, and that you're not inferring causing from the order of events. If you realize that you don't know the cause of the phenomena, it's best to just suspend judgments until the cause is known.Sometimes the "slope" is long: if X is practiced, it leads to Y; if Y is practiced, it leads to Z; and if Z is practiced, it leads to ...... ultimately disastrous consequences.To avoid falling into such fallacies, it is necessary to argue and justify each possible successive step.Loaded QuestionThis occurs whenever a person asks a question which includes their desired outcome, against the position of the person answering the question.Every question relies on assumptions, and even a simple question like "What time is it?" relies on assumptions such as that the listener understands you and has a way of knowing the time.But a loaded question does not simply mean that there are assumptions in the question.The point is that loaded questions contain more or less unproven assumptions.Eg."Are you still beating your wife?" Whether the person answers yes or no, the person is framed as a wife beater, whether they are or not.Prevention:Complete the argument (the "Assumptions" part of the "Premises"), see the section at the end of the text.Begging the Question (circular argument)The real problem with begging the question is that it misunderstands the premises (and definitions) that are psychologically acceptable and reasonable to the audience.The begging-the-question fallacy is committed when the audience is asked to accept the conclusion in dispute, when the premise offered in support of that conclusion is equally disputed, and when further support for that premise is offered on the basis of the original conclusion in dispute.Eg. Some people say they can prove that God exists and when asked how, they reply:"The Bible makes it very clear that God must exist."When asked why we should believe in the Bible, they reply, "Because the Bible is God's own divine work, it must be true:"Because the Bible is God's masterpiece, it must be true."Prevention:Try to argue this assertion on the basis of consensus between the parties.Attempting to discover consensus as a suitable starting point for argumentation is an important cornerstone of the entire enterprise of rational argumentation.False DilemmaAs an informal fallacy, this occurs when the arguer is presenting only two possible options or outcomes to a position, when in reality there are more options.It's done to narrow the opponent's position to only two possible outcomes. It's an argument tactic designed to lead to intentionally chosen narrowed and specific options.Eg.There was many, for example, when it was suggested that the word "God" be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States, and his opponents reacted as if he wanted to eliminate the entire declaration.Conservatives opposed further increases in sulfur dioxide emission standards, and liberals accused him of wanting to relax them.A Democratic congresswoman says she opposes tax cuts, and her Republican opponent accuses her of wanting to raise taxes.Prevention:Think about whether the options you're considering do indeed exhaust all of the possibilities, or if there are other legitimate possibilities to consider as well. Think about alternatives before the list of possibilities is narrowed to only two or one.Biased GeneralizationIt is sometimes described as generalized reasoning based on samples that are too small (relative to the totals they represent).But reasoning based on small samples may not be wrong if it is done under conditions of large margins of error or low confidence levels, even if the aggregate is large.The error lies in overestimating the strength of arguments based on small samples.If the sample is only from hearsay, you are committing a type of the fallacy of hasty generalization: the hearsay fallacyEg.This Pit Bull bites, therefore, all Pit Bulls bite.Prevention:Consider what the evidence is, and how large the sample size is, and whether they're sufficient to be representative of the whole before making the claim.Appeal to Popular Opinion(Bandwagon fallacy)This is the use of popular opinions to create an argument, and it relies on a rumor to gain support. It does this by trying to provoke emotions and excitement of the audience rather than articulating an argument. Eg.The bandwagon argument: This approach claims that because most people believe in an argument or choose a specific route, it must be true and others also should believe it.The patriotic argument: This claim says a viewpoint is correct because it embodies patriotism, and those who disagree are unpatriotic, meaning their opinion isn’t valid.The snob argument: This approach claims if people who have a strong reputation, whether socially or financially, believe in an idea, it must be true.Prevention:Think critically. Consider how your position, needs, or opinions differ from those around you.Look for reliable sources of information.And make decisions more slowly.Appeal to AuthorityRelying upon the view of apparent (as opposed to genuine) authorities to settle the truth of a statement or argument.Eg.Richard Long, a respected retired New Zealand newsreader featured in advertising campaigns for Hanover Finance. Long had no financial expertise.Prevention:Appeals to authority conflict with the basic tenet of good logical and critical thinking which calls upon us to take responsibility for evaluating the grounds for our beliefs. Adopting a belief merely because someone else simply told us it was true is a way of avoiding good logical and critical thinking.Sometimes, however, good logical and critical thinking will itself lead us to rely on genuine authorities. That’s not avoiding logical and critical thinking: it’s reasoning about a matter related indirectly to the question I’m trying to settle.Appeal to hypocrisyAlso known as a tu quoque fallacy, is a rebuttal that responds to one claim with reactive criticism rather than with a response to the claim itself. Eg.“You don’t have enough experience to be the new leader.” “Neither do you!”Prevention:The fact that someone is also does not obscure the correctness of the point or practice being discussed, and you should concentrate on the error itself.Appeal to ignoranceClaiming that something must be true because it hasn’t been proven false. It can also be a claim that something must be false because it hasn’t been proven true. This is also known as the burden of proof fallacy. Eg.There must be fairies living in our attic because nobody’s ever proven that there aren’t fairies living in our attic.Prevention:The best way to avoid appealing to ignorance in your writing is to focus on the available evidence rather than what a lack of evidence might imply. However, there are some non fallacious appeals to ignorance. - If qualified researchers have used well-designed methods to search for something for a long time, without success, and it’s the kind of thing people ought to be able to find, then the fact that they haven’t found it might constitute some evidence that it doesn’t exist.Some practices (e.g. law) require us to reject a claim until a certain standard of proof is met: the presumption that defendants are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for example.Causal fallacyThe mere fact that there is a correlation between the two is used to prove that one thing causes the other.Whereas, in fact, they may be opposite or not causally related .Eg.Research has proven that there is a correlation between the health of older people and regular sex.Therefore, regular sex promotes the health of older persons.Prevention:Rather than assuming a correlation reflects causation (or that a lack of correlation reflects a lack of causation), ask yourself what different factors might be driving the correlation — and whether and how these might be biasing the relationship you are seeing.1.Is the authority a genuine authority: are they experts?2.Are they giving advice in the areas within which they are a genuine authority? (We should listen to actors about acting; not so much about investing or medicine).3.Is there a broad consensus among authorities in the area? If not, we should not decide to believe X solely because an authority says X is true, since other genuine authorities say that X isn’t true.4.Is the authority speaking sincerely (they might be giving an endorsement because they’re paid to do so) and are they free of obvious bias?Only if the answer to all four of these questions is “yes” should you accept a claim because an authority endorses it, and even then, we should only do so if we are not in a position to evaluate the evidence for the claim ourselves.RhetoricTechnically, they are not fallacies, but they can be persuasive by stirring up anger, sympathy, or fear to reduce your skepticism, which in turn keeps you from thinking about it carefully.Not all expressions that stir up emotion are fallacious, misleading, or bad.In fact, no difficult task can be accomplished without emotional support and strength.It is important to make a good distinction between relevant evoked emotions and irrelevant appeals to emotion, so as to avoid reducing rationality in the formation of beliefs."Argumentation" from AngerAnger is not the same as fallacy, and there are times when anger is perfectly appropriate.But when we are angry, or angry enough to be angry, we tend to become illogical.This manifests itself in two ways.The first manifestation is the mistake of believing that we have been informed of a reason to be angry when there is no actual reason to be angry.Something cannot be considered incorrect simply because it is outrageous, even if the outraged person is ourselves.It is easy to mistake the emotion of anger for evidence of the object that caused it.But anger is only an emotion and not evidence of any other event.The second manifestation lies in the fact that anger aroused by one event may influence our evaluation of another unrelated event.If we are outraged at the motives of a detractor, we must remember that the motives of the critic and the appropriateness of the criticism itself are independent of each other, and that impure motives do not preclude the correctness of the criticism.Similarly, even if a person does something that annoys us, we can neither use this as a reason to underestimate other aspects of that person, nor to underestimate others. A particularly dangerous subcategory is scapegoating - blaming specific groups or individuals for the difficulties they face For example, officially guided Chinese online platforms like to blame the United States or capitalism for social problems, stirring up nationalistic feelings.Scare tacticsTrying to scare people into doing something or accepting a certain position is a form of intimidation.Arguments that resort to force are a special kind of intimidation.Regardless of whether the usual or extraordinary means of intimidation are used, it is a fallacy to substitute fear for reasoning and judgment in order to get people to take a certain position on an issue.Likewise, it is a fallacy to give in to such tactics when they are practiced in front of us by others.Of course, when faced with a real threat, people are justified in behaving cautiously, even if they don't recognize it as such when the situation is no longer embarrassing.Fear can also easily confuse us, and in times of fear we are prone to make the same mistakes we are prone to make in times of anger.To avoid transferring our fears about something to the evaluation of something unrelated, we need to find out what our fears are about.Reasonable warnings are not irrelevant or intimidating tactics.For example, a close-up of an adorable (and vulnerable) baby staying in a car tire rim.Anyone watching this would be disturbed, and the reasonable thing to do after reading this ad would be to check our car tires.But the Michelin merchant's advertising appeal is: please buy Michelin tires!is not offering a reasonable warning; it is employing scare tactics.Arguments for Appealing to CompassionCompassion for someone leads us to hold a certain position on something unrelated that may be irrational.The Argument from JealousySympathy tempts us to reinforce someone's strengths; jealousy tempts us to exaggerate someone's weaknesses.When we fault someone out of jealousy, we fall into the argument from jealousy.FlatteryA sense of self-importance especially makes us susceptible to flattery, which can cause us to exaggerate our own achievements and abilities on the one hand, and make us make other, unrelated judgments on the other.RationalizationPeople commit the fallacy of rationalization when they use false pretenses to satisfy their desires or interests.Whether or not the reasons they mention exist, covering up their true desires is this fallacy.Two wrongs make a rightIf an act is wrong, it is wrong.Claiming to be a wrongful retaliation for some wrong does not make it reasonable.Wrongful acts do not cancel each other out so that one of the wrongs disappears.It would be a clear fallacy to think that any retaliation for wrongdoing is justified, as in the case of ultra-nationalists who want to massacre the people of a country that has invaded them.It is also a fallacy if the retaliation is not directed at the one who committed the prior wrong (like the brother or child of the wrongdoer).It is another fallacy to justify hurting someone on the grounds that they will or might do the same to us.III Sources of informationThe fact-checking discussed above is done when you have plenty of time and energy, and when a thing is important to you.More often than not, you shouldn't have to put in a lot of time doing such boring thingsChoose credible mediaThere are truths and falsehoods in any media, but that doesn't mean you have to read them all.And in more cases than not, you shouldn't have to spend a lot of time doing these boring things.For example, you're trying to figure out whether Stephen Hawking has been to Epstein's island, as the Chinese self-publishing media massively claimed, but every batch of court documents in the Epstein case has hundreds of pages, and you won't have the patience and energy to go through them as much as a BBC or Guardian reporter would.Choosing reliable sources of information can be an effective way to save you time and reduce the risk of being plagued by unreliable news.It's true that there may be gold in the garbage, but you can't expect to find gold in the garbage every day, and it's more likely that you're mistaking the garbage for gold.World Press Freedom Index (WPFI)WPFI in WikipediaFreedom of the press guarantees truthfulness.In general, the news media in countries with scores below 55 are more likely to be manipulated to achieve government objectives through false or selective propaganda.If an incident does not occur in one of these countries, for those who want to save time, they can simply choose media in other countries for information.Notice.WPFI only deals with press freedom and does not measure the quality of journalism in the countries it assesses.Characteristics of media that can be trustedVerifiable facts and statistics, not rumors or wild claims.Just because it "sounds right" or seems to confirm what you already believe does not mean it is actually true.Cite Sources - Just like citing sources in a research paper, Internet news should do the same.If they don't specify where they got the information from, there's no evidence that it's correct.No relevance of interest.Make sure they don't fabricate or report selectively.Sources whose URLs end directly in ".edu" and ".gov" are relatively credible.However, be aware that domain names such as ".edu.me" are not credible.The site should have an "About Us" or similar tab that lets you learn more about them.Who is the person expressing an opinion?Is he or she a subject matter expert or a professional journalist?If not, or if you can't find out who the author is, be cautious about trusting the material.Avoid unreliable sourcesState-associated or state-controlled news organisations, especially state media in countries with low press freedom, such as the Chinese press agency Xinhua, the North Korean Korean Central News Agency and Press TV in Iran. They may be propaganda organisations. RT, formerly known as Russia Today, and other Russian government-funded sources like Sputnik News have also been described as propaganda outlets for the government. In the case of officially funded media in Western countries, which are generally subject to public scrutiny and rigorous information verification, there is less likelihood of fake news.However, as stakeholders, they may remove statements that are unfavorable to the government.From social media It is not difficult to claim to be a professional on social media, which opens up the possibility for the spread of confusing information, especially news that is opinionated but lacking or insufficient evidence.(These will be discussed in a later section)In general, tabloid newspapers, such as The Sun, Daily Mirror, the equivalent television shows, should be used with caution, especially if they areThe Daily Express and Sunday Express should be treated with even greater caution.Never use conspiracist sites such as Infowars without exception.Content farms are websites that produce large quantities of web articles quickly to attract traffic for commercial gain, such as advertising dollars, or for a specific purpose, such as controlling public opinion or leading the way.Often utilizing search engines to achieve eye-catching clicks, they can now appear as accounts on platforms such as short videos.That said, they mostly lack reliable sources, are of poor quality, are not informative, spread misleading messages, are incorrectly translated, and are often laced with a lot of advertisements or malicious programs.List of common untrustworthy mediaNo need to memorize, but be carefulWhen you see a lesser known or dubious media outlet, it's best to do a web search or check the list to determine its credibilityFake news sitesBe careful if you read news or quotes from them.Unlike news satire sites (which are mentioned in this article), they disseminate false information, primarily for profit, and may even pose as authoritative media outlets .List of fake news websitesSatirical News SitesThere is nothing inherently wrong with these sites being set up to be funny or satirical, but some of China's fact-checking media like to quote sensationalist stuff It's not like horses and penguins to start protesting, but there will be more indistinguishable things like "Bezos' Chinese adopted daughter gets $50,000 a week in allowance, and is punished if she doesn't spend it all."List of satirical news websitesMainly for the ChineseGlobal Times, Observer, China Daily, Fuck People's Daily...Well, I think you should at least avoid all official Chinese media, plus the Chinese self-published media.IV OtherInitial credibility judgmentWhen you read information, you form guesses about its truthfulness; this is initial credibility.If the information is consistent with what you know to be true or commonly known, you would assign it a high level of initial credibility.If it doesn't, you'll think it may not be credible.It's cool to make broad judgments about what's credible and what needs to be verified, isn't it?So you need to consciously develop the precision with which you generate initial credibility .I suggest the following analysis:What does the article convey?How does it (want to) make me feel? / What goal they want to achieve?Where they got the information? / Does it provide any direct and reliable evidence?(If it doesn't provide evidence.) Can I identify it on myself?Avoiding interference with initial credibilityScreenshots from chat software or forwarded messages cannot be used as strong evidence It's very easy to fake, you don't even need to have two accounts as there are screenshot generators on the internet.Pictures may not be real In addition to common fakes such as photoshopping, attaching unverifiable pictures to a message can also be faked. eg. Chinese social media platforms have seen people posting photos of large numbers of dead fish, claiming that they are the result of Japan's nuclear wastewater.However, no evidence exists that the pictures were taken in Japan, and the pictures look more like scenes of electro-shock fishing.Beware of so-called experts The people on social media who wear suits, stand in front of bookshelves and speak confidently are not necessarily experts.You should pay attention to their education (in an authoritative organization) and experience in the field (not the same as being in the profession for a long time).Next are things like accomplishments, reputation, and position in the field in which they work.Note: Being an expert in one field does not make them qualified to express opinions on matters in other fields **Note: Being an expert in one field does not make them qualified to express opinions on matters in other fields.The word of a stakeholder is less trustworthy With a product, a company spokesperson is more likely to tell false news than a user, right?The words of interested parties need to be scrutinized (or at least questioned) more carefully than those of uninterested parties.It's easy to lose objectivity, even when attempting to remain objective, when the stakes are relevant.Watch out for repetition Goebbels said that the essence of propaganda is repetition.There is also an old Chinese saying that three people make a tiger.Repetitive information is more likely to create a true impression, which is why companies like to have different people send ads for them on various platforms.That way when you need to buy an item, you first think of the one you've seen over and over again, even if there are other widely recognized and reasonably priced products.Fortunately, this effect on people may be smaller than it would otherwise be when buying something expensive.Use social media cautiouslyI decided to avoid seeing all kinds of rumors with lack of rational opinions and protect my perceptions by not following social media until my critical thinking matures.I stopped using and cleared messages on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. last year.For the same reason, I think my frequency of social media use will be drastically reduced after this.If you are struggling with the same, try it too.Read MoreThe publication of books other than self-published books needs to be scrutinized, which at least ensures that the quality of the books is better than the man-made garbage you see on forums or social media.I recommend reading books that are neither boring nor theoretical, either popular science books on political science, history, social psychology, quantum physics, etc., or professional works or textbooks with lots of examples and detailed explanations.Because their readership is rich in knowledge base and hard to fool, these types of slightly specialized books are more likely to give the reader something of value.Think about what you need before you read, and targeted reading involves filtering and sifting, effectively reducing the memory burden so that what is really useful is more likely to be remembered.When reading such books, you need to think and absorb the complexity of the arguments and plots. At the same time, a large proportion of the authors of such books are good thinkers, and you can learn from them what angles they take, what evidence they choose, and how they argue their points. In short, you can learn their way of thinking so that you unconsciously think in that way.After reading, you can comb through what you have learned to deepen your understanding. This article is an example. As mentioned in the previous blog, systematic presentation is also a kind of learning. If you can express the important content of the book rigorously and clearly, it means you understand it, and the purpose of reading has been achieved.In addition, reading expands knowledge. Human knowledge is vast, even an expert in a certain field can not fully grasp the knowledge of the field, want to be proficient in all areas of knowledge is unrealistic.Therefore, my strategy is to master multiple fields of knowledge (but not necessarily be proficient in all of them) so that when you look at something, you're more likely to know which angle to look at it from, what information you need to add to it, and how to correlate that information as a premise to a conclusion.Practice ConsciouslyWhen you read an idea, whether it's in the news, social media or a textbook.Understand its premise, conclusion and argumentative process and think about some questionsConclusion: 1 Which words are ambiguous? 2 What are descriptive assumptions (descriptive assumptions are ideas about what the world was, is, and will be like, the writer's point of view about the facts, and if it is not true, the premise is faulty)? 3 What are values assumptions (unarticulated, but value-based presuppositions.They may vary from country to country, from society to society, or from individual to individual, and the same person may have opposing ideas at the same time, depending on the degree to which they are accepted)? 4 What conclusions might be justified?argument: are there fallacies in the reasoning?Premise: 1 How credible is this evidence?2 What important information has been left out?On whether or not to complete the opponent's argument:Yes.Many authors prefer to conceal their premises for reasons of economy, to cover up flaws, or to mislead.That is, they make "assumptions".Assumptions include definitions, values, and perceptions.It's easy for non-critical thinkers to overlook this, but for us, digging out the premises is an important step in identifying holes in an argument.Critical thinking and independent thinking is an awareness as well as an ability, such things are difficult to learn through someone else's description, and you need to gradually build up a process of reviewing various arguments (your own or others').This article is only a guide to critical thinking in contemporary situations, and as stated at the beginning, this article may be just the beginning, but it is by no means the end.PostscriptI started conceptualizing this post over twenty days ago, but I put it off for a long time due to so little time after school and other things, during which time I was nearly driven crazy by my to-do list.The time I really spent looking it up and writing it was around six hours, which may have been a bit rushed.The article is also brief compared to professional works and lacks examples and analysis.Please feel free to suggest corrections if there are any shortcomings.But I'm proud enough of myself.This article is probably the only practical manual on the Chinese Internet that integrates so much necessary information.These specifics are also almost impossible to find, except on a few sites such as Programming Thinking.Reference:Wikipedia Critical Thinking by Moore, Brooke Noel, Parker, RichardAsking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking by M. Neil Browne, Stuart M. KeeleyMACDONALD-KELCE LIBRARY in The University of TampaIndeed.comGrammarly.comSuccessfulstudent.org