Science is the art of learning how NOT to fool ourselves, and can teach us a few tricks that come in especially handy for journalists: Understanding exactly why "affirmative action" is critical to change, for example, and eye witness testimony all but useless; why what we see ‘right in front of our noses” is often an illusion; how contradictory (even mutually exclusive) perspectives can both be true; how quality and quantity are related in ways that help us make sense of everything from the effects of income inequality to climate change (“more” is “different”); why statements such as “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” demonstrate a basic misunderstanding of probability; the meaning of “moral luck” and why algorithms perpetuate stereotypes (and become self-fulling prophesies); why they/we “all look alike,”: how quantum mechanics can help us look out for the “observer effect” (the presence of a journalist can change everything).
