Final Seeking Truth

Soumya Ram

Growing polarization and declining trust in institutions make it harder to establish shared facts, but bringing together experts with opposing views to jointly produce evidence based analyses can help create a more accurate, balanced, and trusted understanding of contentious issues.

William Deresiewicz

Positions over sides

Musa al-Gharbi,

humans are naturally biased and limited in how they think, so even science is not purely objective, and the best way to get closer to truth is through diverse groups of people challenging each other within strong institutions rather than relying on any individual mind.

 Scott Alexander

the media rarely lies outright and instead misleads by selectively presenting true facts without enough context or by framing events in ways that shape interpretation and because of this what counts as misinformation depends on subjective judgments about which context is important rather than clear false statements

Society of Professional Journalists, Code of Ethics, 1926 version

Journalism must responsibly serve the public by prioritizing truth, independence, fairness, accuracy, and decency, while protecting press freedom and ensuring reporting is free from bias, private interests, and harm to individuals’ rights.

Society of Professional Journalists, Code of Ethics, 2014 version

Journalism should serve democracy by promoting accurate, fair, and transparent reporting, where journalists act independently, verify information, minimize harm, correct mistakes, remain accountable to the public, and follow evolving ethical principles rather than legal rules.

1926 vs 2014 (…)

The - SPJ Code emphasizes journalism’s moral authority, public duty, and strict impartiality rooted in clear rules about truth and restraint, whereas the - version frames ethics as a flexible, evolving framework focused on accuracy, accountability, independence, and minimizing harm in a more transparent and democratic media environment.

 Dan Williams

Misinformation definition is contested; expert classification is risky

Musa vs Dan (…)

- emphasizes that human cognition and science are structurally shaped by pervasive bias, motivated reasoning, and institutional partiality that no individual expertise can fully overcome, whereas - is more focused on “error vs. partiality” in misinformation research arguing that while some classifications may be technically accurate, the deeper problem is the selective, expert-driven framing of what counts as misinformation itself, which can introduce systematic bias even without outright factual mistakes.

Stuart Ritchie

the academic “publish or perish” system prioritizes novel, positive results over accuracy, which contributes to questionable research practices, fraud, and the replication crisis, ultimately undermining the reliability of scientific findings.

Lara Schwartz

False equivalence in media and education distorts understanding of truth by treating all opinions or inaccuracies as equally valid; meaningful inquiry instead requires recognizing degrees of correctness and applying discipline-specific standards of evidence rather than relying on simplistic “both-sides” thinking.

Naomi Oreskes

We should trust science because it is a reliable, self-correcting collective process that is more likely than any alternative to produce accurate knowledge, even though it involves uncertainty and requires us to rely on expert consensus rather than individual verification.