None of us are immune, and if I was a bit hard on you, it is only because I know you to be a thoughtful person through your years of internet posts. As for Wierman, I presume this is a simple case of misunderstanding. It did take a vast leap of uncritical reading to take it at face value but I'm done beating that bush.abasile said:What bothers me is that this demonstrates the ease with which FUD or "alternative facts" can be spread, quite often unintentionally. Clearly, I'm not immune. I will have to say that I've read more than a few articles in purportedly credible publications, such as IEEE Spectrum, that have seemed pretty dubious when addressing areas that I know relatively well, such as electric vehicles.
It is my habit (and tendency anyway) to apply sanity/reality checks to whatever I read. Besides the exercise in arithmetic, it helps me spot inadvertent errors, unlikely conclusions, and well disguised propaganda. It is true and sad that the large majority of Americans lack the High School competency needed to do the same, so they are extremely vulnerable to trumpism. This discussion between us was a good example: I wonder how many readers will realize that this was never about Google's CO2 emissions (which are net zero, but that is never clarified in the Prof Wierman related information) ?