Masks and toxic masculinity

#里茲螞蟻批判性思考寫作專欄 #Alex專欄 #外師每週精選閱讀 #口罩議題
今天的外師專欄，要來探討口罩相關的議題～來看看外師Alex閱讀完這篇新聞後的感想吧！

Let’s examine how the media often combines and distorts information in order to push their own agendas. When a writer has their own personal agenda to further, they often have no concern for facts or unbiased discussion, and will pluck any data from any source to cobble together whatever semblance of an argument they can, regardless of the total lack of journalistic integrity that it shows them to suffer from.  Clearly this is what has happened in the article below, where the author seems to want to bolster their feminist credentials by combining the results of unreleased research, biased opinion polls and unconfirmed statistics, in order to create their own perfect storm of man-bashing “toxic masculinity” drivel. No doubt in their mind, the author has manufactured a well-balanced position that is supported by facts and figures. But when those “facts” and “figures” come from unpublished, non-peer-reviewed research, raw and preliminary data that has not been analysed or correlated, and from opinion polls that ask leading questions to bait the respondents into certain stereotypical answers, the result is no more valid than a social media post about 5G causing COVID-19.

Unfortunately, this is the likely result when research findings are published without being subjected to peer-review first. It is a foregone conclusion that only some of the meaning or concepts contained in the research will be latched onto by people who just skim the details looking for points that can feed their confirmation bias. Although this might be the case with any information spreading through various filters, when writers cherry-pick only what supports their opinion and dismiss the rest, the increasingly common trend of releasing the results of studies without first subjecting them to proper checks and balances is certainly going to exacerbate the spread of misinformation rather than mitigate it.
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https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/497814-men-less-likely-to-wear-face-masks-because-theyre-not-cool
 
===我是分隔線===
 
💡這個專欄目的是訓練同學聰明閱讀。
 
上面的貼文內容是我們的實力派外師Alex，針對每週一篇英文文章閱讀後，親自寫出的批判性思考文（不是copy & paste的東西啊）。旨在讓同學知道如何用不同的角度來讀文章。你可以選擇先讀Alex寫的批判文，也可以選擇先讀本次的英文文章連結，但最好兩處都要閱讀才能達到最好的效果。
 
這是個訓練批判性思考的好機會，希望同學不要被文字牽著鼻子走，在閱讀時可以多思考。大家可以善用這個寶貴的資源～
 
舊文連結：
https://www.leedsmayi.com/alex-column
 
Alex是我們的御用老師，每週都會幫梅姨、托托、慕華、金金上英文課。目前星期一晚上有開一班 #里茲螞蟻外師應用英文課程 ，程度高級，充滿知識性與深度。有開放單次付費上課。若你想學習用英文來深度探討各項主題，check it out！
 
Alex老師的應用英文課：
https://www.leedsmayi.com/applied-english.html