Believe it or not.

In October 1919, Robert Ripley issued us a challenge to “Believe It or Not!” The imperative is the title of Ripley’s series of periodicals in which he recounted facts and events which were so strange and unusual that most people doubted the reported claims. Although it has been nearly a hundred years, Ripley’s challenge is as alive and formidable as it has ever been. The internet has made it excessively easy to distribute and access enormous amounts of (mis)information. With the ease of access that comes from unfiltered information, the burden of evaluating and discriminating between reported facts and events has fallen upon the public to an unprecedented degree. Our challenge is that we must figure out how to navigate a world of information which contains politicized journalism, expert testimony, fake news, scientific explanations, and alternative facts.