Modern ‘news’ is a battlefield of misinformation. Every domain of ‘advice’, from science and health through events and politics is impregnated with bullshit. ‘Research’ that is cited as the source for grossly negligent or outright false conclusions is the daily bread of modern media. While growing up, I began to realize just how baldly deceptive our news media is, and in modern times it has become a flagrant disease.

As an example, this morning I read a headline that stated: “New Research Confirms That We Get Our Intelligence From Our Mothers.” This immediately interested me because it not only seemed likely, but matched some of my experience and catered to biases I have nurtured. So I started to get excited. But then I remembered that most science news is nonsense, or gross misinterpretation of research (much of which is flawed or even wrong to begin with, or will be shown to have been mistaken as its propositions are more carefully examined in the future).

The idea ‘made sense’ to me, and this is why I was both susceptible and excited by the article. This is known as confirmation bias: we are inclined to believe (and share) information that conforms to or confirms existing ideas, desires and opinions, many of which are completely wrong… and a vast number of which are of a very special category: ‘cannot be true under any circumstances’.

Further research revealed that the history of this article was entirely nonsensical, and relied upon ideas that are unproven, probably unprovable, and very probably simply wrong.

We Get The Opposite Of Intelligence From News would be something science could prove relatively easily. Until and unless we develop systems that immediately reveal the biases, lies, rhetorical errors and outright inventions… of what we call News.

And this is an idea whose time is now. We need systems that vet media, and teach us how to avoid, correct and debunk ‘news’ that is mostly poison. To change the media landscape, we need both education and technologies that will empower us to rise far beyond the common denominators of bullshit, and move to a place where our public information exchanges increase our intelligence, rather than rendering it nearly impossible.

In the modern context, this abysmal situation is magnified, because now, media corporations can actually select which media is likely to match your biases and ‘personalize’ your media exposure according to psychographic profiles produced by your personal (and social-group) electronic activity.

It is important to recognize the opportunity here: that same data could be used to reveal opportunities for learning, relational, health and developmental advancement… instead of deception and catering to lethal biases.