Critical thinking

John Oliver does it again ! I have always been a fan of the Last Week Tonight show, a show that uses humour to bring people's attention on important and yet neglected issues. Sometimes the show can be quite boring for people outside of the States though because the issue discussed is about some problems in the States and the inside jokes just won't work. However the latest episode (Scientific studies) is certainly about something I think everyone needs to know and it is an issue that I experienced first hand very recently : the validity of scientific studies.

About a month ago, I was trying validate my Monte Carlo simulations with an analytic resolution of the equation of radiative transfer proposed by a scientific paper. I simulated some of the cases studied in the paper and tried to recreate some experiments, but I never got what it was stated in the paper. During two weeks I tried and tried, kept thinking that there must be something wrong in my model. That was the most frustrated two weeks of my life. In the end, I presented everything that was not working and my supervisor told me to forget about it, deciding that the results of the paper might be a fluke. That was seriously a wake up call for me. Not even published scientific papers are reliable enough to be taken as truth, not at least they have gone through multiple replication studies.

I am frustrated because it wasted two weeks of my time. On the other hand, I also feel I am so fortunate to have initiated the building of a critical mindset towards scientific studies. With a standardized structure in PDF format, a title jammed with complicated words, multiple graphs, and a long list of references to other papers, each with again, a title jammed with complicated words, it is just not in an untrained person's common sense to be skeptical about the scientific papers. 

me watching TV news

Critical thinking and skepticism are really important in doing science. In fact, it is also an important attitude regarding information circulating on the internet and news broadcasted by the mass media. I rarely watch TV. But during the February of this year, I was back in Malaysia and I had watched some TV news. The lack of accuracy, emotional manipulative title, and the lack of integrity, what is deemed news-worthy just make me facepalm. The same can also be said with the stuff shared on the social media. Like click-baits and top 10 lists, TV news is also under the pressure of viewership. What is wrong about the news is already been said and said again by many people like IHE (I hate the news) and the School of Life (Craziness of the daily news).

By knowing the pressure they are under, sometimes I do empathize with the news shows. But as the viewers, it is our responsibility to filter the information they tell us. When it comes to be critical, I think nobody can beat the French people. In the land where it gave us Voltaire and René Descartes with his famous quote : "I think therefore I am", critical thinking is embedded in their culture. I might be wrong, but in my circle of connections, it does feel like it is true. They even have a news network named Gorafi pumping out fake news everyday, to serve as a satirical look at the state of news broadcasting in general. 

False news is just rumour, and rumour can catch on like wild fire if we are not careful. One example is the Summer of the Shark in 2001 before the 911 attack. What this event teaches us is, what the media chooses to focus on can have a serious influence on our view of the world. I have to admit that it is difficult to filter the information fed to us. I personally wasn't as skeptical to the news as me now. The Kony 2012 was the turning point for me. Ever since I have been trying my best, to be critical towards news and some random "facts" found on the internet.

Just like CGP Grey said : "It's your brain, be hygienic with it."  (This video will make your angry)