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I wanted to develop a practical tool to help readers deal with misinformation. So what I wanted to do was classify all the types of misinformation into just four steps. And I illustrate these four steps in a graphic which I call the Ladder of Misinference.
So why do I use the graphic of a ladder? Well, when we start from some facts, and we draw some inferences from those facts, we are stepping up the ladder. We are making inferences from them. But I call this the Ladder of Misinference because sometimes the steps that we make aren’t actually stepping onto a solid rung. We might be making missteps because actually the highest step is flimsy given the fragility of the evidence.
So the first rung of the ladder is that a statement is not fact. It may not be accurate. It could be a quote taken out of context or a quote with no supporting evidence.
So you might think the solution to that is to check the facts, check that the quote was actually said. But this is not the perfect solution because of the second misstep, which is facts are not data. They may not be representative. Even if something is one hundred percent accurate, it could be the exception that does not prove the rule. It could be cherry-picked.
So you might think, well, the solution is to gather all the data to look at the full picture. But that is also not enough because of the third misstep, which is data is not evidence, it may not be conclusive. It could be a correlation, but it’s not causation.
The final misstep is that evidence is not proof. It may not be universal. Even if you’ve nailed a causation within one particular setting, it might not apply to different contexts.