“EscapingThe Fact Free Zone”

An Educator’s Guide to Navigating the World of Misinformation

In the 1960s, we were transported weekly to Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Today, we’re immersed daily in The Fact-Free Zone, a world where facts are overlooked, distorted, or invented. There have always been skeptics, political disagreements, and misinformed individuals, but not only can many today not access facts, we now have “alternative facts.” Individuals rarely can get on the same page for a civil discussion.

Our educational system is failing many. Fortunately, the best of our youth excel. However, despite many advocating the need for critical thinking, misinformation prevails. Many mistrust science, the most reliable tool for discovering the truth. Additionally, many lack the mathematical reasoning necessary to sift through the many claims, advertisements, and alternative theories, further complicating our search for accuracy. Mathematical reasoning is often the best tool for pinpointing what is fact, but most never take it out of their toolbox. Many yearn for a return to the past, but what past? The past portrayed in history books didn’t exist, as much of it was whitewashed to create the history we wish we had. To live in a fact-based world, one must accurately understand where we have been, even if aspects of it are less than admirable. Countries, like people, learn by trial and error, but without an accurate history, we’re doomed to repeat our failures.

            The book will show us the way out of the Fact-Free Zone by trying to answer several questions:

1.     Why is cognitive bias so prevalent?

2.     How do we recognize and combat misinformation?

3.     Why is pseudoscience thriving in a world where people have access to science?

4.     Why do so many cling to a distorted view of our history?

5.     How do our mathematical shortcomings often blind us to reality?

6.     Why do so many have an inaccurate view of our environment and the natural world?

Most importantly, the book offers implications for twenty-first-century education, focusing on critical thinking, mathematical reasoning, and scientific analysis —the tools needed to avoid the Fact-Free Zone.