The February 2022 issue of Scientific American has an interesting article called, “Schooled in Lies” concerning the general failure of the education system to teach students how to identify fake news. The article discusses a few ways that have been attempted, but apparently with little success and even less evidence that any approach works. The problem starts with the idea that young children tend to take what they hear at face value, assuming that “adults” know the truth. Then, as they grow up they find that there are many “possible” versions of the “truth” – without an obvious method for determining which is true and which is not true. They often end up thinking that there isn’t ANY truth therefore all answers are of equal validity and value. There appears to be good evidence that students are beginning to think that everything is a lie, and that because of this there is no point in engaging in difficult topics. They just take what “feels” good (and is easy to grasp) and tune out.

The rather weird world of information on the internet has definitely opened up some surprising issues, not the least of which is how do we actually determine what is real and what isn’t. This isn’t helped by a general misunderstanding about why much (maybe most) of “science” (which is promoted as the gold standard of “true”) changes over time. The idea that science is based upon theories (guesses) that are then investigated in an attempt to validate or refute the theory makes little or not sense to the general public. When a theory is found to be wanting, and therefore replaced, much of the public takes that as a sign that science really doesn’t “know” anything – they decide that because it changes scientists are just making wild guesses intended to support some sort of evil government lead conspiracy.

The article promotes finding ways to get students to a better level of understanding; “to that place where you can start to see and appreciate the fact that the world is messy, and that’s okay.” This would include having a fundamental way of gathering “accepted” knowledge, but still allowing for uncertainty based upon future evidence about how the world works. The idea is to accept that uncertainty with the goal of achieving greater awareness and engagement in discovering “truth”.

While everything is messy and uncertain, that does not imply that truth doesn’t exist. The search for the “truth” is a process, not an end point. The science of physics is a great example where theories have changed, but in ways that continue to build upon previous knowledge while accounting for actual observations in the “real world.” Newton invented some powerful theories explaining the observations available to him at the time. He explained motion, gravity and much more. His theories were accurate in describing the world as observed by him. However, over time new methods of observation were invented, resulting in the realization that while his theories “work” at one level of observation, they don’t work at the extremes or in other situations – so new theories where created, most notably Einstein’s theories of relativity. That opened new areas of observation, but didn’t negate Newton’s theories, it just added some new domains to the problem. Quantum Mechanics followed hot on the heels of relativity, finding new theories for parts of “reality” that are not covered by Newton or Einstein’s theories. All of these theories still apply, but with the caveat that they don’t apply to everything. At this moment in time it is clear that none of these theories are actually “correct” in an absolute sense, they are only correct in the realms that they apply to. All three approaches yield extremely accurate, and amazing, predictions of how the world works, but none of them are “complete” – and in fact none can actually be totally “true” because they are all contradict each other. That doesn’t exactly make physics “wrong,” just incomplete and evolving. All of science does this.

So how do we help kids (and adults) learn to trust what is “known”, while being skeptical with the understanding that it is the best that we have at this time, but is subject to change?

I think that perhaps the “key” to this isn’t so much in learning definitely what is “true” and “false”, but what to do with that information. Once you realize that it is never possible to “KNOW” the truth the meaning of true and false changes. False is not so difficult because measurements and observations can show something to be false. The real problem has to do with determining what is true because while something might be correct for all known situations, one observation in the future might find it to be false. We are forced into a position of considering our knowledge to be tentative and provisional. Knowledge is more or less likely to be correct – with the understanding that perhaps it will change if new information is found. This is known as “uncertainty” – the universal situation for all knowledge and every theory of how things work.

The issue has to do with what we do with the information and our understanding of the world. We make assumptions about what is most likely to be “true” and then act upon those assumptions. For example, during this time of the covid pandemic we listen to our sources of information (the news, our friends, the CDC, the government, our doctors, etc) and decide what we think is the truth of the situation. Perhaps it is exactly as described by the CDC, or perhaps that is entirely a hoax – perhaps it is something in between. Perhaps vaccines offer protection, perhaps they harbor hidden dangers – perhaps they do both. However, at some point we have to make a decision (even not making a decision is making a decision in this case). How do we make a “good” decision in the face of so much uncertainty?

The process is similar to the decision about whether to vaccinate or not based upon sketchy, incomplete, uncertain information. I am fairly confident that the pandemic is “real” based upon a very wide range of sources, including personally knowing people who have gotten extremely ill or died from the disease. Initially I had to accept some “trusted” (but not personal) sources that a problem existed. After talking to friends and relatives who have contacted the disease I find it impossible to consider it a “fake” problem. The magnitude and severity is still uncertain to me, but the presence of a “real” problem seems obvious. Before vaccinations were available, the best guess that I heard was that if I were to catch it, there would be about a 5% chance of dying, a 30% chance of extreme illness requiring hospitalization, and about a 50% chance of little or no impact. At that time, the best information that I could find indicated that without taking precautions, the chances of getting infected are about 100%. If that is true, then 5% of the 320,000,000 in the USA are at risk of dying (16,000,000 people) with around 100,000,000 people requiring hospitalization. These are certainly big numbers, much larger than our society can withstand without experiencing massive problems. Even assuming that the initial estimates were ten times (or 100 times) too large, this was (and still is) an extremely serious problem for our country and economy.

So what do (or should) we do with this information? If it is correct but we do nothing, then the outcome will be massive death, economic collapse, and widespread misery. If it is correct and we do something, then there will be big disruptions and large costs, but the county and the economy will weather the situation. What if it is incorrect and we do nothing? Then we just hum along like we had been doing because nothing changed. What about it is incorrect and we do something? Then there is a big expense for nothing. That is the “nut” of the problem. How much money (and disruption to our lives) do we spend on the off chance that the problem doesn’t exist? We are betting the lives of perhaps 16 million people, and the health of perhaps a 100 million more, and the entire economy of the County against the cost of doing things to keep the numbers low.

Riding in an automobile has a similar problem with making decisions in uncertainty. We all know we can be killed in an automobile accident. There are approximately 40,000 deaths in the USA per year due to automobile accidents. This about 0.01% (1/10,000) of the population per year (about 1/500 of the initial estimate for covid deaths). We clearly find this to be an “acceptable” death rate since we continue to ride in automobiles. The benefit to us is worth the risk. We know we might die anytime we get into the car, but we judge the likelihood to be small enough – after all none of us have yet died from riding in cars and we do so up to a thousand times per year. Assuming 1000 trips per year per person, that means that there is something like 1 in a million chance of dying on any give trip. The interesting thing is that even with these very low death rates we are still willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars per vehicle in safety measures (crumple zones, protective passenger cages, air bags, anti-lock brakes, etc.), and usually wear seat belts. We are willing to pay a lot of money for reducing the chance of 1/10,000 of dying in per year in an automobile accident. The initial estimates for covid deaths were as high as a possible 1/20 (5% of those being infected, with a possible 100% infection rate).

Global warming is another type of issue that involves an even greater potential outcome. What are the costs if the rather dire predictions of the “do nothing” scenario turn out to be correct? It appears to me that it is essentially infinite in terms of loss of lives, livelihoods, health, the environment, etc. There is NO amount of current value worth balancing that negative outcome. If we had no uncertainty, the only logical solution to prevent complete destruction is to spend whatever it takes to prevent it from happening. Of course it feels like there is some uncertainty, so we are not willing to give up everything to keep everything.

Another way to look at this is to consider what happens if we are not the cause of global warming and we just waste our money and effort reducing the carbon dioxide emissions? What if we reduce them through reductions in burning of fossil fuels and it has no climate impacts? First off, it WILL decrease the problem of the oceans becoming more acidic because of the CO2 levels. This is a BIG deal, we are currently at risk of causing huge negative changes to the fish populations of the oceans, globally. It will also reduce the amount of all kinds of air pollutants, radically increasing the health of everyone that breaths. It is become increasingly apparent that we can shift to a vastly reduced use of fossil fuels in ways that decrease costs, increase jobs, and result in better working and more pleasurable living conditions. All indications are that life will get cheaper and better, not more expensive and worse, by stopping to use so much fossil fuel.

The major negative impact will be that those who sell fossil fuels will not have a market for them. That means they will not only lose much of their income, but will more importantly lose much of their global political power. The income isn’t a concern because they will just pivot to making money off of the new energy sources, but the change in global political power might be significant.

So we get down to dealing with uncertainty. Are there a potential massive problems heading our way? Most likely, but perhaps not. Are there ways to minimize (or avoid) those problems? If we act quickly and decisively before the climate crosses a “tipping point” that continues no matter what we do. Are the large costs associated with acting right now? Yes, but these are more about shifting where resources are spent then in an increased in costs. For example, we have the grid capability to shift to all electric cars right now, but that will require a significant short term investment in infrastructure and a shift in automobile manufacturing. However, doing so immediately would have huge repercussions to the oil industry. It can be done, it is affordable to do so and it would make life better in many ways – but there are large market and political forces preventing it from happening. Should we do it? Yes. Will we do it? Unlikely.

It seems to me that the real issues that we should be addressing in our schools concerning how to sort out lies from truth should focus on considerations of how to judge the relative value and importance of the information – what kinds of details and considerations are important when using uncertain information to make decisions? Perhaps, the issue is broader – perhaps it has to do with learning how to make decisions having the best “expected value.” We all need help in determining how to place the right value on uncertain information, and how to create sufficient “plan B” considerations about what happens if our expected “plan A” doesn’t work out as hoped. Rather than just assuming that we “know” with certainty, maybe we need to learn how to be a little more prepared for the eventuality that we were wrong.