Who is telling me what, for what reason, for what gain, through what channel, and with what evidence?

What Evidence:

We expect authors to provide clear evidence of their assertions. The challenge for us as users of ideas depends on whether we trust the evidence presented.

Sometimes authors expect us to believe something that they keep saying over and over.

At other times, the same piece of evidence might be used for supporting opposite conclusions.

In 1954, the book How to Lie with Statistics taught many people to use the same data for many reasons.

We can become very cynical and begin to think that we can’t trust any evidence if it can be mangled beyond recognition.

Not a good idea.

Instead, over time, we can get better and better at sense-making and common sense or even testing the evidence.

Spring 2022 Grad-student Contributions: