Play Book Tag discussion

dO yOuR oWn ReSeArCh!!!!

Many in the group like to read nonfiction. Historical, medical, scientific, self help, philosophical, psycological, opinion...etc. How do you decide who and what to trust?

What are your thoughts and opinions on history being fluid and not absolute depending on the lense you are looking through?

Do you ponder the medical and potential medical and scientific inaccuries of our day that the future will look back and shake their heads?

Do you have a fear of your reading selection?

Is there an innate benefit to being a reader or is your choice of material more important?

How do you decide who and what to trust?
- I tend to find favorite authors and read their entire catalogue. I base my trust on what I've read before. (Favorite non-fiction authors include Rick Atkinson, Tim Butcher, Ron Chernow, Timothy Egan, Amitav Ghosh, Walter Isaacson, Elizabeth Kolbert, Erik Larson, Barry Lopez, Robert Macfarlane, Hisham Matar, David McCullough, Nathaniel Philbrick, Michael Punke, Hampton Sides, Ian W. Toll, Vauhini Vara, Simon Winchester, Michael Wood)
- I look at lists of prize-nominees for non-fiction, which usually pick high quality, researched, and vetted books.
- I will read non-fiction written by authors who write mostly fiction that I have enjoyed.
- I belong to non-fiction book groups, and take recommendations from readers with similar interests (My main interests are science, travel, history, exploration, memoirs, biographies, the arts, the environment, business, technology, and psychology.)

What are your thoughts and opinions on history being fluid and not absolute depending on the lense you are looking through?
- I don't think historical facts are fluid (for example, the Holocaust really happened, we really landed on the moon, and we have known the earth is round for centuries), but I do think history can be interpreted through a lens of the author based on his/her experiences, which we need to take into account as we read their books.
- Much of the older history books, for example, would not question colonialism or antiquated racial terminology, but we would expect these to be called out or avoided in current works.

Do you ponder the medical and potential medical and scientific inaccuries of our day that the future will look back and shake their heads?
- Science is always making progress (well, at least until it's entirely unfunded), so I expect there will be things we believe now that are supplanted by additional knowledge.
- As long as the books are coming from the those who follow the scientific process (and not anti-science crazies), I am happy to read the current state of what we know - it's the best we have at present.

Do you have a fear of your reading selection?
- Not sure what you mean here, but generally no, I don't fear learning new things. I love it! It's part of the reason I read non-fiction.

Is there an innate benefit to being a reader or is your choice of material more important?
- Both
- I find innate pleasure in reading but also, of course, I enjoy things I am more interested in, so I try to pick books carefully.

General comments about non-fiction:
- If I have read a fiction book I didn't like very much, I will follow it with non-fiction, which I almost universally enjoy. It is my brain food and a palate-cleanser.
- I do not take everything in a non-fiction book as fact, and almost always follow up with a search about the qualifications of the author and the latest status of research. This is especially important for books about technology,

Great comments, Joy, I know you read a lot of nonfiction!

I am influenced by major media, such as NY Times Book Review, Atlantic magazine, NPR, PBS (which I suppose some would call liberal sources.) I also trust the reviews of many of my GR friends. And my library book group reads mostly fiction but not entirely. Those choices are determined by the group and the librarian together. I agree that major prizewinners are also reliable.

I am also interested in the credentials of the author, do they have degrees in history, science, etc.?

Approaches to history definitely change. Some people have wondered what history class will be like in those states that are mandating "patriotic education". All of us of my age can tell you because that's what we had. America was a land of success, westward expansion was great (very little about those pesky Indians). Slavery was bad but we got rid of it (probably taught differently in the South, as Jason might know.) We won lots of wars and there were reasons for all of them. (This is reminding me of the song by Tom Paxton - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iSis...

I give talks regularly I call "famous women we've never heard of". I keep finding women in the US and England, even once in Australia, who did amazing things but were never mentioned in textbooks. Sometimes their deeds were hushed up by embarrassed children in the Victorian era. Sometimes it's just that nobody took the time to research these fascinating lives.

I go on trips through Road Scholar (used to be called ElderHostel). -trips for seniors that always have educational components. They send you an optional reading list ahead of time. By my 2nd trip, I sent them an email complaining that many of the recommended books were from the 1980's or similar era. For instance, for a trip to Virginia - colonial history in general is known but for sure there are newer works considering the lives of both free and enslaved Blacks, women, and other underrepresented groups. All they have to do is consult with the knowledgeable guides that are employed at the sites we visit, who have to keep their info updated.

On medical and scientific progress, I do wonder how many products and processes we have today will turn out to be harmful. For instance, smoking was unquestioned for a long time. In the sci-fi books of the 1950's-60's, people on space ships smoked cigarettes (and the men usually had a secretary in high heels to light them!)

I read mostly fiction and the nonfiction areas I like are people-related - history, biography, education, psychology. I rarely read nonfiction about "hard" science, medicine, ecology, etc.

Interesting questions! Sometimes I do research historical things from books and am left disappointed if it's been inaccurately portrayed as far as the facts are concerned. Sometimes I give that a pass if the author discusses why they did that.

Historical facts are historical facts, but obviously history is written by people and I don't think anyone is truly unbiased; to be truly unbiased you'd have to have zero opinions about anything in life plus be omniscient. If I'm particularly interested in something from history I'll read it by people with different biases.

This is a subject that's been close to my heart since university when people were working to uncover women's history. I've learned that this can be rife with errors (eg Elizabeth Blackwell was not the first women to practise as a doctor lawfully; there was one in Sweden who started before her, but she might have been the first to go to medical school to become a physician.)

Most people could benefit from a refresher on critical thinking skills every once in a while. Especially when people use google or AI whenever they have a question. We need to consider the source, but search engines algorithms filter most of them out. When I look at AI answers I look first to the references.

I think the most valuable things I learned from all the statistics courses I took were 1) correlation does not imply causation, and 2) always consider other variables. All the antivax evidence is based on the faulty assumption that if 2 things happen near the same time, one must have caused the other. Others were persuaded by emotional anecdotes alone. Trump made the same mistake with Tylenol last month. (It wasn’t a secret what he was going to announce, so I’m sure someone made a lot of money by short selling the stock. )

When I’m considering a nonfiction book, I often look at reviews, awards, and similar confirmation. When possible, I look at the back of the book for the reference section.

If I’m reading anything related to politics or political issues, I expect heavy bias in one direction or another.

Medical and scientific information is more likely to have a strong conservative bias, with many authors repeating the same old information despite the availability of new evidence. If I’m reading about something new, I’ll want more information on the evidence and methodology. I’ll expect more references at the back of the book.

When it comes to trust, there are red flags in the way someone presents their case. Exaggeration is a big red flag. Only presenting one side of an argument, or Ignoring alternative explanations are big. If it seems like a book is trying to sell me something, that’s a problem. If the underlying assumptions are clear, that can help in either direction. If get annoyed by half truths, but I might not recognize them. The more I know about a field, the easier it is to judge for myself.

When an author starts by discussing the nefarious reasons why other experts or authorities are lying to you, I get suspicious. But you can’t totally discount them because there ARE experts that will discount new evidence, particularly if the researcher is not seen as one of them. Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest did an excellent job showing the hurdles a researcher faced when trying to share information about evidence that opposed the status quo beliefs. Her research about mycorrhizal fungi, and cooperation among trees and plants is now well respected. But at the beginning, the men didn’t want to be told their policy was wrong, especially by a young woman. It wasn’t just sexism. Her research ran counter to the basic evolutionary assumption that trees are simply in competition with other trees. Her theories showed that in many cases, trees and plants work cooperatively to share resources with one another. That was a big paradigm shift.

Sorry I got off track. I don’t worry that reading a book could hurt me. It might make me mad or sad for a little while, but I’m not going to blindly act on something I read.

I have a prompt for resistance or revolution and saw these on a couple lists. In many countries throughout history, it would be dangerous to own books like this. Heck, even in the US, if I was an immigrant and was caught with this, I’m pretty sure I’d be deported or worse.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline
Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

How do you decide who and what to trust?

I've been trained to question everything and to find out how things work [mechanical engineering], also to try to see both sides of an issue [dialectic materialism]. So I do research anytime something seems fishy in a book, like a science-fiction novel that makes extraordinary claims about the universal laws of physics, medical issues [like the recent vaccines controversies] and in particular in recent years, history. A recent novel about octopuses was charming and well written but it made me cringe with the overblown claims about animal intelligence.
The wise guy who quipped that we live in a post-truth society had something going: every politician and every pressure group is trying to rewrite the past according to their own agenda, and it takes multiple sources to cut through their bulls_t

I had another couple thoughts last night about regarding history.

- Any historian who is worth the title actually researches what happened during the writing process, using primary sources, and when they must make a judgement call, they mention it and say why they chose the interpretation they did. We are fortunate that previous generations left us so much written documentation.

- The more I immerse myself into historical narratives, obtaining numerous perspectives, the better I understand the period.

I am similar to Joy, in that I have certain favourite authors that I read and trust, and will read pretty much anything they have written. I also have a number of journalists / social commentators that I like, so I would read their non-fiction as well. And sometimes, I see someone being interviewed on the news or a current affairs programme who seems interesting, so I will also try to read their books or articles. Once I've found an author or subject I like / trust/ find interesting, I will also look in their footnotes to find ideas of other books to read.

With regards to history, there are certain things that are facts, but there can be more than one way of interpreting it. I find that reading just one book on a particular topic is not enough to satisfy me unless it is an area of history that I am already familiar with (I have a history degree), and so I will often look things up online as I read, to try to get a more balanced interpretation, or even develop my own interpretation of the event.

I'm not sure what is meant by the question about fear in my reading selection. Do you mean that I always read from the same authors / points of view, so that my understanding will be one-sided? If that is what you meant, then no, I don't have this fear, as I am fully aware that I don't know everything, and can't possible know everything, and that my ideas will change over time as I am influenced by different books I read. I read primarily for enjoyment, then to develop my understanding, and all books should do this to some extent.

I read far less non-fiction here than most responding to this thread, or even that are members of PBT, though I have been reading far more in the last couple of years. I blame being a lawyer on my aversion to NF reading in my spare time as my entire day is reading or listening to and participating in NF.

However, a lot of the fiction I read has factual, historical plots or aspects, and I am well known for disappearing down google and research rabbit holes -- everything from maps and images of items, to recipes, to historical background and more. If something strikes me as off in the book, I go looking and it ticks me off when I confirm something is wrong - and it did not need to be - and often stop reading the author.

Dry academic writing in NF I avoid. There are subjects and writers that I will gravitate to and have a bit of a TBR to draw on when the mood strikes.

I see all NF writing that I read as subjective in some way. It's the author's interpretation of whatever resources they used. Some are better and more reliable than others, but if you start with the idea that this is someone's own take on research, there is less irritation or disappointment. Plus the time period in which it was written is key. How the French resistance and Vichy are described whether in NF or F now is very different than in the first 50 years after WWII, especially by the French themselves. What I find interesting to try to delve into is the influences, the reasons for it.

Like Algernon, I've been trained to look 'behind' and also to see both sides and maybe even a third, fourth or fifth take. Every lawyer has been trained - that's what law school does. You never read a newspaper or even a comic book the same way again after law school. It's not something you shut off.

I'm also one of those lawyers who actually looks at the blueprints, specs, etc. when writing a contract, or probes the theories or process behind something. Not all lawyers do but for me I don't believe I can write a proper lease, contract, whatever that will adequately protect my client and serve my client's needs if I don't. That's proven to be true over and over.

NancyJ wrote: "I think the most valuable things I learned from all the statistics courses I took were 1) correlation does not imply causation, and 2) always consider other variables. "

This is important in critical thinking, but that alone isn't what I meant about logic. My sister, a doctor who opted to retire early, always brings up the point that correlation does not imply causation with linked medical conditions (such as people with migraines having higher rates of certain other things since both her daughter and I have them.) However, I already knew that both with health and many other things in this world.

Logic and reasoning aren't easy to apply and not everyone excels at it any more than everyone excels at any other subject. Many people confuse common sense and/or their own assumptions with logic, but logic uses a set of reasoning tools to get from a premise to a conclusion; many times premises are opinion based or things one can't prove. One can use perfect deductive or inductive reasoning and end up with something incorrect.

Theresa wrote: "I read far less non-fiction here than most responding to this thread, or even that are members of PBT, though I have been reading far more in the last couple of years. I blame being a lawyer on my ..."

Great point. I just lowered a children's novel score because of an obvious lie that I double checked. I also look things up at times, especially if it's an obvious one. I was most disappointed because the kids who read this aren't going to know that Africa isn't 3 times larger than North America and this wasn't a child saying it but a classroom teacher.