 I think the main problem is that people have difficulty identifying expertise, identifying who is and is not an expert. And so the mismatch between people's desire to find experts and to extract knowledge from them is not well paired in this environment where it's very difficult for people when there's many different voices talking and saying many different things to identify who is and isn't an expert and where to actually gain the expertise that they're looking for. There's so much information out there now and it comes from so many different places but you know I like to know who I'm talking to and what they value. So you have a certain amount of anonymity and I'm not too trusting of that. Access to so much information within that environment, it becomes more difficult to figure out who to listen to and who might actually have the authority to make judgments rather than the ability just to have an opinion about something. And I think that's a really critical difference that I talk about with my students, particularly graduate students who are training to be experts in my field. I tell them you're going to make judgments, you're not going to have opinions in the same way. I mean there's a difference between making a judgment and having an opinion. I have an opinion about what's wrong with my car, a mechanic can make a judgment about what's wrong with my car and that's what expertise offers you. Information is so easily accessible, it is easier for people to gain that access and I think at times they then devalue expertise if they can find those answers for themselves. I think it's hard to be considered an expert in the current media environment because if someone doesn't like what you have to say they will simply reply with an article that it completely contradicts you even if it's not based in fact and even if you point out that that's not a reputable news source or that's not how things actually went the fact that they can go on Google and get the answer they want even if it's not reality makes it hard for truth to be discerned. People have a tendency when they encounter information that is counter to their own previous world view often reject those notions out of hand and that bias then can filter the type of information people let in and so people then will have a tendency to let in information that might be quite biased but is more commensurate with their own world view than other sources of information which in fact may be more factual or may be more truthful. People who write books are people who believe strongly in the information or the position that they are exploring but again we always leave things out and what is left out in anything tells you a lot about what the producer or creator is pushing for so it's always there we're only human we only have so much time to read and research and balance things but I think if we are at the very very least aware that bias is unavoidable I think that's a really really good start now whether that's enough I'm not sure but without that knowledge then again we really are just at the mercy of whatever information or source or person comes along and tries to sell us something who is doing the talking can you see their identity in the way they present the information the way they make arguments but you also have to be careful about that you can't dismiss people's arguments just because oh well that person has this political leaning or has this gender or this particular perspective doesn't invalidate their argument so you need to be aware I think of bias but you also can't just assume that everyone is biased which I also see among students and other people that just won't believe anything that I think is another kind of abdication of the hard work of sifting and thinking about the information and so I think one of the most important things that people can learn is how to suppress their own biases enough in order to get a nice sampling of different points of view especially ones that as was mentioned before are more trustworthy and more accountable to getting things incorrect and so the more that people can control their own biases and understand their own biases the more that they can correct for them in the information that they allow themselves to digest clearly if I find myself agreeing and nodding along to everything that I'm hearing or reading then there's a bias and consequently if I find myself wanting to throw something at the television set I realize there's a bias there too so for me what I try to do is hear something from multiple points of view and see if at the end the facts are the same I would advise people to look for multiple sources and to see if they can glean the same story or facts from different points of view when consuming news look outside of American media and see what the spin from a BBC or The Guardian or a different news source just to see what the take on it is and if it delivers the same content differently Having a PhD in history does not mean that you're infallible that you know everything there is to know about history and that your judgments are sound or reliable they may not be so I think you have to balance the idea well does this person have credentials are they an expert in the field with a judgment of the work itself when I'm looking at an information source what is the quality of the work what are the sources how do they talk about the ways they came to the judgment the way they arrived at the conclusions that they come to I think that's important and you can develop that only really over time I'd like to know why people are involved in something you know what do they bring to an issue or a situation you know if I believe that there is some bias there for whatever reason and we all have our biases but I'd like to know what they are then that helps me make a judgment about whether I trust the information that I'm getting medic cognition comes in that you need to think about the way you're thinking about things and you need to do things like examine yourself for bias and so forth but that's a constant process that you need to think oh no I've transcended bias I'm an expert now I don't need to worry about no that's every day, every moment that you need to be thinking about those things