The making of a misinformation meme
Plus: A few book suggestions & more
Hi, all, and welcome to newer sign-ups! I’m glad you’re here.
This week, I want to start by highlighting three recent articles of mine you may not have seen. They’re very much related to my book work, but I’m not sure they’ll make it into the book except in passing mention. Still, they’ll give you a good idea of where my thoughts and research are going lately.
After that, three book suggestions, all around the subject of expertise and public trust, and a word on book buying.
Articles
“The making of a vaccine misinformation meme,” at The Week. You may have seen collections of screenshots going around in which different Twitter users tell the same pro-vaccine story verbatim as if it is their own experience. These collections are being widely shared as proof of a deliberate propaganda campaign—but they’re nothing of the sort. I happened to see this meme get started in real time, and it’s literally people scaring themselves. I found the whole thing fascinating and funny, discouraging and grim. This is the story of how it happened.
“On answering with gentleness and respect,” at Christianity Today. What does it mean to speak “in good faith”? What does bad faith look like? And why, when the assumption of good faith is so clearly dead, should Christians practice it anyway? This column explores those questions in connection to some recent controversies.
“I found a discrepancy in CDC vaccine stats. Here's what happened,” at The Week. The New York Times COVID-19 vaccine stats page, using data from the CDC, said 99% of those 65+ in Pennsylvania had been vaccinated. That struck me as obviously false, so I investigated. Turns out my suspicion was correct, and the CDC told me it built its vaccine tracker without a formal process for correcting data errors, removing duplicate records, etc. Only now, months into this thing, are they slowly getting such a process up and running. So anyway, about that public skepticism of expertise …
Books
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters, by Tom Nichols. “Technology and increasing levels of education exposes people to more information than ever before. These gains, however, also fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that derails debates on numerous issues,” the backmatter of Nichols’ book explains. This is a quick read, more descriptive than prescriptive, with an important insight into how public discourse presently works (or rather, doesn’t work).
The Revolt of the Public: And the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium, by Martin Gurri. The subject here is quite similar to Nichols’ focus, but this is a longer and more academic (and also gorgeously made) text which explores in greater depth how “we drown in data, yet thirst for meaning. … And the more you know, the less you trust, as the gap between reality and the authorities’ claims of competence becomes impossible to ignore,” leading to “a radical disillusionment with the institutions of settled truth.”
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, by Mark A. Noll. A modern classic for good reason, and worth your time if you’re in or interested in evangelical circles. It includes recent history that you may have lived through but not known, particularly if you didn’t come into adulthood until after the book published in 1994. “The scandal of the evangelical mind,” Noll’s (in)famous opening line declares, “is that there is not much of an evangelical mind,” and, boy, does he make the case.
One final note I keep forgetting to make: I’m intentionally not linking to Amazon for these books.
I know this is cliché, but order from your local bookstore if you can! If you don’t have time for in-store pick-up, many will ship to you. I sometimes order from Hearts & Minds, a small, independent Christian bookstore near Philadelphia.
What I particularly like is that if you know what sort of book you want but don’t have a specific title in mind, they’re happy to advise by email or over the phone, and it’s way better input than an algorithm will give. I’ve purchased most of our kids’ Bible stories this way, because I can explain the theological angles and tone I want in a way that’s impossible with online shopping.
Thanks for reading; I’ll be in touch again soon.
Best,
Bonnie
