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Alex Edmans is Professor of Finance at London Business School. Alex graduated from Oxford University and then worked for Morgan Stanley in investment banking (London) and fixed income sales and[…]
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We often think the solution to misinformation is fact checking. But just checking facts is not enough. Even if a fact is 100 percent accurate, it could still be misleading – it could be a large-scale correlation when there’s no causation.

The solution to misinformation is not obtaining a PhD in statistics, London Business School professor Alex Edmans and author of “May Contain Lies” argues. We often already possess the discerning skills to distinguish truth within ourselves.

Misinformation is so prevalent today because we suffer from confirmation bias, or the idea that we have a certain view of the world and we will latch onto any piece of evidence that supports our viewpoint. When we inject skepticism into our thought process, we can overcome these biases.


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