The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect

The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect is when a person reads or watches news coverage on a topic they know well, finds it inaccurate or vague, then later trusts the same source for topics they are less familiar with, despite knowing those reports may also be unreliable. Named after physicist Murray Gell-Mann, it highlights how people tend to dismiss errors in familiar fields but still believe the media's reports on unfamiliar subjects, often without questioning their accuracy. Essentially, it reflects a cognitive bias where familiarity with inaccuracies in one area leads to unwarranted trust in the overall credibility of the source.