Author: TheConversation

By Barry M. Mitnick, Professor of Business Administration and of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh What is real can seem pretty arbitrary. It’s easy to be fooled by misinformation disguised as news and deepfake videos showing people doing things they never did or said. Inaccurate information – even deliberately wrong information – doesn’t just come from snake-oil salesmen, door-to-door hucksters and TV shopping channels anymore. Even the president of the United States needs constant fact-checking. To date, he has made an average of 15 false or misleading public claims every day of his presidency, according to a...

By Walter Reynolds Farley, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Michigan The 2020 Census hasn’t even started – but it has already kicked off spirited fights. A Supreme Court case, decided last year, blocked a Trump administration proposal to ask every respondent if they were a citizen. Meanwhile, there are three pending federal court suits in which plaintiffs for civil rights groups and one city claim that the administration has not done sufficient planning or provided enough funding for Census 2020. Census 2020 is far from the first census to set off bitter political fights. One hundred years ago,...

By Joel Christensen, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, Brandeis University In an age of deepfakes and alternative facts, it can be tricky getting at the truth. But persuading others – or even yourself – what is true is not a challenge unique to the modern era. Even the ancient Greeks had to confront different realities. Take the story of Oedipus. It is a narrative that most people think they know – Oedipus blinded himself after finding out he killed his father and married his mother. But the ancient Greeks actually left us many different versions of almost every ancient...

By John Rennie Short, Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County New disease outbreaks, like the novel coronavirus that recently emerged in China’s Hubei province, generate headlines and attention. Meanwhile, however, Americans face a slower but much more pervasive health crisis: obesity. Nearly 40% of Americans are considered obese. Rates of obesity for children have increased in recent decades, putting more people at increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. One in 5 deaths of those aged 40 to 85 are now attributed to obesity, and one recent study projects that by 2030, nearly...