‘Bullshit’s no laughing matter. Climate denialism bullshit, for example, is harmful. Misinformation about SARS-CoV-2 clearly cost lives. In fact, the biologist Carl Bergstrom, while watching the pandemic unfold, argued that “detecting bullshit” should be a top scientific priority. In 2020, Bergstrom coauthored a book called Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World. In their preface, he and his coauthor paid respect to the philosopher Harry Frankfurt, who died on Sunday at the age of 94. Frankfurt, they noted, “recognized that the ubiquity of bullshit is a defining characteristic of our time.”

Frankfurt, the author of the surprise 2005 bestseller On Bullshit, maintained that bullshit isn’t the same thing as a lie. The bullshitter is unaware of the facts. They’re just “bullshitting,” as we say, often in order to persuade others to go along with something, like a plan. But the liar deceives knowing what’s true and obscures it, with language or charts and figures. The good news is that we don’t have to resign ourselves to observing the spread of bullshit—or lies.

In a new study published in Nature Human Behavior, researchers came away optimistic about efforts to combat bullshit about COVID-19, which continues apace….’ (Nautilus)