Seeing a sea of seemingly sensible people so easily succumb to patent disinformation disseminated by clout-chasing “influencers,” disingenuous politicians, and mendacious media (both mainstream and alternative) buttresses my conviction that judicious discernment is a scarce commodity. Ironically, the dearth of Reason is flagrant even among self-proclaimed “critical thinkers” whom one would expect to possess at least some semi-reliable heuristics for distinguishing fact from fiction.

I shall suggest that the principal precipitant of this distorted perception and susceptibility to misinformation is the entrenched propensity to permit internal prejudices to perpetually seek validation from external sources. Other common factors that come to mind are the infantile impulse to affiliate with a tribe (think political left/right), a lack of knowledge (ignorance), and intellectual indolence. Cultivating prudent discernment fundamentally depends on one’s ability to think critically and capacity to confront and correct the aforementioned shortcomings.

The vast majority of the plethora of falsehoods routinely promulgated to the populace can be easily spotted because of their inherent absurdity and refuted with a simple fact-check. Sophisticated fabrications sometimes require more rigorous investigation. In the event of a paucity of verifiable primary records needed to confirm the veracity of a particular claim, one can determine its likelihood by deferring to established scientific (empirical, statistical, historical, etc.) evidence and questioning its rationality and logic.