Edmonton author Timothy Caulfield takes aim at misinformation in new book

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Timothy Caulfield has spent his career tracking online misinformation and he’s worried things are getting worse.

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“As someone who has been working in this space for decades, I cannot believe how bad it has gotten,” says Caulfield. “The spread of misleading content, of lies, of mis- and disinformation has been incredibly normalized.”

His newest book, The Certainty Illusion: What You Don’t Know and Why it Matters, delves into the how and why misinformation is spread online. It tracks the systemic pressures baked into the information environment that can make it difficult to find the truth or even clarity. It tracks the forces that have brought us to where we are today and where we are going in the future.

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Caulfield is an expert on misinformation, an academic who has made a career of tracking the spread of lies and half-truths online. He’s a professor of law at the University of Alberta, the research director of the Health Law Institute and an author of multiple books about the nexus of science and public policy.

His book looks at everything from the use of fake science language in the service of lies and selling products to the proliferation of fake online reviews, and how the pressure academics face in getting published leads to articles with inflated promises and overstated results. Caulfield takes aim at social media, mainstream media, politicians, academics and academic institutions, pointing to how each contributes to the spread of misinformation. Everyone takes their lumps.

But it’s his plain language and clear examples that make The Certainty Illusion accessible to a wider audience. He talks about the proliferation of fake online reviews and the problems with the writeups we all use to guide purchases. Real reviewers can be influenced by the weather, while fake reviews are becoming increasingly difficult to separate from their legitimate counterparts, with AI making that distinction even blurrier.

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“It still feels real, feels authentic. (Online reviews) feel like you’re getting a window into how people think. But lurking in the back of people’s minds we know it’s fake,” says Caulfield.

In his discussion with the experts, even they admit they check online reviews when making purchasing decisions

Despite his glib outlook on the state of online misinformation, The Certainty Illusion provides advice for non-experts to break through the noise. This includes avoiding “scienceploitation,” when science-like language is used to sell a product or push an agenda. Also, resist the urge to buy into the hype and always consider the full body of knowledge; if something seems too good to be true, do some research and find out if it is.

“Science is hard and it’s iterative, uncertainty is inherent in science,” says Caulfield.

The Certainty Illusion is Caulfield’s fourth book, released Jan. 7 from Penguin Random House Canada. For more information about the book, visit the publisher’s website.

Two new writers in residence

A new year means new writers in residence for the city and area libraries.

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Local authors Rhonda Parrish and Anna Marie Sewell have been selected to take over as the writers in residence for 2025.

Parrish will work out of the Stanley A. Milner Library, serving as the writer-in-residence for Edmonton. She’s a well-known local author and editor, publishing numerous anthologies and collections of work.

Sewell will be the writer-in-residence for Strathcona County and St. Albert, spending the first half of the year in Sherwood Park and the second half in St. Albert. She’s a former poet laureate for Edmonton and her latest book, Urbane, was released in 2023 by Stonehouse Publishing.

The pair will split their time between helping local authors and working on their own projects.

Edmonton Public Library 2025 speaker series

An astronaut, an author, an academic and activist and one of the country’s most famous newscasters: the Edmonton Public Library has announced its lineup for the Forward Thinking Speaker Series.

The first speaker, coming later this month, will be Dr. Shawna Pandya, is the country’s first commercial astronaut, heading to space aboard the Virgin Galactic Delta class of spacecraft in 2026. She will be speaking at Triffo Hall at MacEwan University on Jan. 22 at 7 p.m.

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The other three speakers this year are author and humourist David Sedaris coming May 5,  kindness activist Jessie Thistle on June 9 and former broadcaster Peter Mansbridge on Sept. 9.

For more information, including tickets, visit the Forward Thinking Speaker Series website.

New autobiography from Bonny Reichert

The daughter of one of the city’s most cherished restaurateurs is releasing a new autobiography.

Bonny Reichert’s memoir, How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty, follows her as she grows up working in various restaurants her family owned throughout the city. But it’s also the story of her father, Saul Reichert, a Holocaust survivor and the former owner of Teddy’s Pub & Deli.

She talks about her own experiences growing up in Edmonton, but also delves into Saul’s past, from growing up in Poland through to making his way to Edmonton after the Second World War.

The book will be released on Jan. 21 from Appetite, an imprint of Random House. Reichert is an award-winning Journalist who currently calls Toronto home. For more information about the author, visit her website.

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