The Diminishing Role of Facts in Public Life with RAND
The RAND Corporation defines “Truth Decay” as the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life. This phenomenon has taken hold over the last two decades, leading to public uncertainty and disengagement. So, how did we get here?
About the event
Join executives from YPO’s newest content contributor, RAND Corporation, for this enlightening webinar. Michael Rich, President and CEO of RAND, and Jennifer Kavanagh, Director of the Strategy, Doctrine and Resources Program in the RAND Arroyo Center, will discuss the unique degree of disagreement about basic facts, underscored by a growing divergence between evidence and beliefs.
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Meet the panelists
Jennifer Kavanagh Ph.D.
Jennifer Kavanagh is director of the Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program in the RAND Arroyo Center and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. She also leads RAND’s Countering Truth Decay initiative, a portfolio of projects exploring the diminishing reliance on facts and analysis in U.S. political and civil discourse. Her research focuses on U.S. defense strategy, international conflict and military interventions, disinformation, and the relationship between U.S. political and media institutions. She is a faculty member at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and also teaches research methods courses as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Kavanagh graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in government and a minor in Russian language. She earned her Ph.D. in political science and public policy at the University of Michigan.
Michael D. Rich
Michael D. Rich is president and chief executive officer of the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. For more than 40 years, Rich has helped RAND become a leading source of expertise, analysis, and evidence-based ideas in an increasingly complex and polarized policymaking environment.
