Margaret McCartney: Evidence in a post-truth world

Is the internet making us more stupid? The outcome of the US presidential election will be analysed as a caustic case study long after we’re all dead, but the internet must take at least some of the blame. We’re in a post-fact, post-truth, we’ve-had-enough-of-experts era.

I remember realising that knowledge no longer meant a date with Index Medicus (young people: this was a multi-volume, paper—paper!—bibliography that started the hours-long search for research, during library opening hours only). The internet has driven through multiple barriers and has made resources such as Testing Treatments, Understanding Uncertainty, or open …