What are false things that have strong evidence behind them?

Perhaps that's because scientists had abused, the public trust in the not too distant past?

(that includes paper publishes as well authors).

I am interested however to learn/understand opinions of how to make the situation better.

For example, updating insensitive model that would include critical reviews of published work, independent confirmation of published work, and so on.

There could be a bias-adjustment model where if heavy majority of the government or business grants are looking for a particular 'answer' within a given subject-area, there need to be a counter-balance model (that, again, incentivizes a plausible discourse)

Today's intensives model for academia, appears to give lot of weight to # of papers being published.

In the areas where statistical significance of experiments/observations (rather than provable theoretical result) plays an important role -- this particular measure of 'one's academic achievement', could be responsible for the 'trust issues'

> for outright lies, wouldn’t libel or slander laws apply?

That would require the slandered party (a) prove it’s false and (b) demonstrate harm. There is also good reason for most slander and libel law withholding many remedies from public figures and politicians.

In this case, a department of a single-party city-state issued a takedown notice against allegations of election tampering. It is as illegitimate as it is Streisand-effect inducingly stupid.

Uncoincidentally, members of the PAP have a reputation for being rather aggressive in suing people for libel.

I think somewhere you have to accept that certain statements aren't true or false. What has changed recently is the willingness of people to view the statements of others as "lying" as opposed to having a different opinion. Unf, when the plaintiff is the government this becomes even more tricky (and I think a reasonable person would conclude that the PAP have used the legal system to supress criticism...I love Singapore, I love LKY...but it is what it is).

That would require knowing you made the post, and since most fake news is generated by anon FB pages, who do you sue?

The answer is nobody. You have no recourse unless you're in the US or one of the few other states that Facebook will listen to.

In the US it is almost impossible for a public figure, especially a political figure, to win a libel lawsuit.

In theory, a deliberate, malicious false statement against a public figure would count as libel; but in practice basically everything is allowed. This prevents politicians from intimidating their critics with lawsuits.

EDITED TO ADD: In fact in the US there is pretty much a constant stream of false statements about every politician, and I can't recall any politician ever winning a libel case. Devin Nunes is trying currently, and basically making a fool of himself.

Wouldn't placing a notice on content deemed fake be more like what we do with slander/libel. Court reports create a record of the lie which aids the public in deciding who to deal with and creates an additional motivation not to lie. It also allows a person to disagree with the judgement.

"This content has been determined to be fake: [evidence or link to evidence]"

That would be my preference.

So

> health claims, protected designation of origin, and public schooling

None of these are like the allegations of election tampering the article discusses, which is squarely in the realm of First Amendment-protected speech in America.

Yes. While there’s arguments to be made against those laws, it seems to be relatively harmless to allow the government to be the arbiter of truth in a few limited situations where the truth is fairly easy to ascertain.

(What’s that you say? The truth of claims about the medical efficacy of drugs are actually hard to ascertain? That’s true, but you’ll note that the standard of truth required by law is easy to ascertain — the question is not whether your drug cures cancer but whether you’ve gone through a specific FDA-approved process to test whether it does, and passed.)

The only institution in a democratic society in general that acts to determine truth is the court system. While a countless number of bureaucrats may make routine judgements about the truth, any disputes over that tend to head to a court.

In court trials, the smallest details of truth are liable to be deliberated and argued over extensively, often producing outcomes that satisfy no interested parties.

It’s easy to have an opinion about what is an “outright lie”, it’s more or less impossible to prove it, and it is literally Orwellian to establish an authority to preside over it.

Ironically, i come across quite a lot of outrageous health claims in Singapore. Cancer-curing smoothies for example.

Not because of falsehoods

Sure. It's the world Americans already live in, except for certain specifically defined types of lies (e.g. fraud, perjury, libel of non-public figures, etc).

Of interest: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/does-th...

It is possible that SK PAP politicians are just damn good at their jobs -- The modern history of Singapore does seem to suggest this.

But it's also possible that no viable oppositions are allowed to organize effectively enough to compete fairly.

My personal yardstick for judging a healthy and mature democracy is counting how many times political power has changed hands without violence -- Singapore is yet to score after 60 years.

There is a third option, that the election system is designed to allow only the desired result. For example, only two of the five possible Singapore Presidential elections have been contested.

My theory is people who want to join politics, do it for power, for money, for status. Put yourself in their shoes, which party would you affiliate with to set yourself up? PAP also have an extensive network of grassroot organizations to recruit any young talents who want to join. It's very hard to change the status quo unless PAP leadership makes a series of catastrophic mistakes.

It's sort of a Catch-22 but worse. No one good joins the opposition parties because they don't stand a chance of winning, and the opposition parties don't stand a chance of winning because no one good joins them. Even if the opposition parties were suddenly magically packed full of talent one year, the PAP still has the senior vote, track record, civil servant connections, and actual governing experience for Singapore that none of the opposition could possibly have. Singaporeans don't elect on ideals and promises for change, they elect on feelings of stability and security. The only way I can see an opposition party putting up real competition and having a chance at attaining a majority in parliament is if a quarter to half of the PAP schisms and joins the WP, which isn't likely.

I would say it's a positive feedback loop. PAP is the main party, so young talents are more likely to join, which in turn makes PAP stronger.