A Matter of Facts: The Value of Evidence in an Information Age. By Laura A. Millar. [Review]

Abstract

To refer to Laura Millar’s A Matter of Facts: The Value of Evidence in an Information Age as timely is both an understatement and inaccurate. It is an understatement because, as of this writing, the COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as not only the most disruptive event across the globe in generations, but has also been subject to the worst excesses of the epistemic crisis that Millar details throughout the book. Perhaps now more than ever, facts, evidence, and the truths they support are urgently needed—they are a matter of life and death—but yet they are constantly subjugated to selective incredulity, confirmation bias, and political expediency. The reference to A Matter of Facts as timely is also inaccurate, not through the fault of the author’s straightforward approach or concise handling of the subject matter, but because any single work cannot possibly account for the depth of the problem of misinformation or anticipate the rate at which it has evolved and embedded itself into our social fabric in such short order. Certainly, Millar is aware of the intractable yet fluid nature of the current situation, and the developments in just the year or so since the book was published could very well provide a tremendous amount of cautionary fodder for an expanded edition at a later date.