“One way of thinking about science is that it’s a check against the natural human tendency to see patterns that might not be there. It’s a way of knowing when a pattern is real and when it’s a trick of your mind.” — Jason Fagone, The Woman Who Smashed Codes
Whenever we learn something new and useful in one field, it often proves useful in other fields.
Lately I’ve been exploring the remarkable life and accomplishments of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, arguably the greatest American codebreaker in our history.
As a self-taught cryptanalyst, she deciphered enemy codes during World Wars I and II; in between, she helped the Treasury Department take down gangsters including Al Capone.
Journalist Jason Fagone’s book quoted above is an entertaining and informative biography of this extraordinary woman’s story, but there also is a PBS documentary series, The Codebreaker, that is excellent.
Understanding the difference between patterns, real and imagined, can be applied to thinking about an entirely different matter than cryptology — and that is the endless conspiracy theories that pollute so much of our current public life.
From the claims by Laura Loomer that immigrants are eating our pets to the anti-vaccination pronouncements by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to the utter nonsense fostered by Donald Trump, a sizable portion of the public has been buying into these baseless theories that are demonstrably false.
And that not only is an example of the difference between science and “tricks of the mind,” it is precisely what sets real journalism apart from the junk too many consume on Fox News and social media.
"So little was known in this country of codes and ciphers when the United States entered World War I, that we ourselves had to be the learners, the workers and the teachers all at one and the same time," Friedman once said of her work.
That is an accurate summation of the state of the under-informed American public today. So little is known of the facts of our world that we all need to become learners, workers and teachers at the same time. That’s why we desperately need to bring back real, honest journalism to help us do what the codebreakers did — save our democracy from an unacceptable alternative — authoritarianism.
(This essay is updated from a year ago.)
HEADLINES:
Second Apparent Assassination Attempt on Trump Prompts Alarm Abroad (NYT)
Violent threats and attacks escalate tensions in Trump-Harris race (WP)
Russia goes all-out with covert disinformation aimed at Harris, Microsoft report says (AP)
Fed Cuts Rates by Half Percentage Point (WSJ)
U.S. overdose deaths plummet, saving thousands of lives (NPR)
Pennsylvania poll shows Harris leading Trump by 1 point (The Hill)
The American right is inciting a pogrom against Haitian immigrants in Ohio (Guardian)
Far From Ohio, Haitian Americans Feel the Sting of Threats in Springfield (NYT)
How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants—After Being Told They Weren’t True (WSJ)
US launches online passport renewal service (CNN)
Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon (Reuters)
Why did Israel blow up hundreds of Hezbollah pagers — and what might happen next? (NBC)
Israel’s Strategic Win (Atlantic)
The Taliban’s Misogyny Finally Needs a U.S. Response (Foreign Affairs)
A bottle of water per email: the hidden environmental costs of using AI chatbots (WP)
OpenAI Says Its New Models Perform Like An ‘Extremely Smart PhD’ (Forbes)
Microscale kirigami robot folds into 3D shapes and crawls (Cornell)
US to convene global AI safety summit in November (Reuters)
Injured Cyclist Briefly Regains Consciousness To See RFK Jr. Dragging Him Into Kitchen (The Onion)
No comments:
Post a Comment