{"id":14435,"date":"2018-02-25T12:41:35","date_gmt":"2018-02-25T18:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=14435"},"modified":"2018-02-25T12:41:35","modified_gmt":"2018-02-25T18:41:35","slug":"dont-trust-everything-you-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2018\/02\/25\/dont-trust-everything-you-read\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Trust Everything You Read"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Science Sushi<\/strong><\/em>, affiliated with Discover<\/em><\/strong>, Christie Wilcox pummels<\/a> Slate’s<\/strong><\/em> Ethan Linck over a claim that backpackers do not need to purify water they find in streams:<\/p>\n

While we like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, there\u2019s no doubt that human beings are\u00a0actually quite awful at assessing risk<\/a>. So\u00a0I can understand why\u00a0Ethan Linck thought to contextualize the risk of drinking from backcountry streams with data. \u201cLife is triage, a constant series of negotiations between risks of varying severity,\u201d\u00a0he wrote<\/a>. \u201cAnd how we talk about those risks matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, it does\u2014which is exactly why\u00a0his piece\u00a0in Slate last week was so damaging. It was anything\u00a0but<\/em>\u00a0a careful, scientific evaluation of the risks. Wes Siler over at Outside Magazine\u00a0already pointed out a myriad of issues with the article<\/a>, but I want to zero in on the actual data, because Linck claimed to be looking at the matter scientifically. Instead, he\u00a0cherry-picked sources\u00a0to argue against doing one of the simplest things you can do to protect yourself from some truly awful diseases when you\u2019re\u00a0backpacking: treating your water.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She goes on to thrash him over his data, his methods, and pretty much his entire outlook on life. At this point, I’m just glad I’m not into the whole Nature Is Good And Wholesome!<\/em> movement, as this would jolt me right out of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Science Sushi, affiliated with Discover, Christie Wilcox pummels Slate’s Ethan Linck over a claim that backpackers do not need to purify water they find in streams: While we like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, there\u2019s no doubt that human beings are\u00a0actually quite awful at assessing risk. So\u00a0I \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14436,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14435\/revisions\/14436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}