Craig Brown Quotes

People don't have a good intuitive sense of how to weigh new information in light of what they already know. They tend to overrate it.

We are not the "free thinkers" we think we are. What we eat unavoidably impacts our physiology; the information we consume inevitably affects our opinions and perspectives. You cannot eat junk food with impunity; you cannot consume information without consequences.

To weigh and evaluate a vast grid of information, much of it meaningless, and to arrive at sensible, if erroneous, conclusions, is a skill not to be sneezed at.

It's good to know how to read, but it's dangerous to know how to read and not how to interpret what you're reading.

I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.

Perspective gives us the ability to accurately contrast the large with the small, and the important with the less important. Without it we are lost in a world where all ideas, news, and information look the same. We cannot differentiate, we cannot prioritize, and we cannot make good choices.

Regardless of the magnitude of the decision, our brains make it hard for us to keep the perspective we need to make good choices.

Ten percent of the American population thinks that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Those are the people that have not learned the skill of filtering information from the vast barrage of inaccurate information that we're all faced with everyday. I think that's a very 21st century skill.

There is something about inside information which seems to paralyse a man's reasoning powers.

Distinguishing the signal from the noise requires both scientific knowledge and self-knowledge.

For sure, the American people have access to more information now than any other people who have ever lived on earth. And I think we do a pretty good job of sorting out what's important.

In politics, information is superabundant—what is needed is judgement and selectivity in dealing with that information.

There is a tendency to mistake data for wisdom…

The child has no way of knowing what's good information.

The power of the Internet is also its limitation - it provides access to large amounts of information without providing guidance on how to sort out what is credible and what is not.

The listening community has the obligation of distinguishing informed opinion from tweets.

We're assaulted with facts, pseudo facts, jibber-jabber, and rumour, all posing as information. Trying to figure out what you need to know and what you can ignore is exhausting.

It's not as if Trump is addicted to the best-researched, most in-depth, meticulously sourced material in the world. If he were, we'd all be better off, right?

I'm kind of fascinated by this idea that we can surround ourselves with information: we can just pile up data after data after data and arm ourselves with facts and yet still not be able to answer the questions that we have.

I think the most important thing that young people should be taught at school is how they can decide what they're being told is true.

I guess what's happened is that I've a little bit let go of the idea that we can reach everybody. Certain people... the informational world they live in, it's so distorted that it's hard to get through.

When information overload occurs, pattern recognition is how to determine truth.

If we are not serious about facts and what's true and what's not. And particularly in an age of social media where so many people are getting their information in sound bites and snippets off their phones, if we can't discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems.

It's not because my mind is made up that I don't want you to confuse me with any more facts. It's because my mind isn't made up. I already have more facts than I can cope with.

The polls demonstrate that 50 percent of Americans who get their news from TV think Saddam Hussein was behind the Twin Towers attack. Man, have they got ways for getting half-truths out right away now, thanks to TV! I think TV is a calamity in a democracy.