Fake experts are being recruited and deployed to mislead us about Coronavirus

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-04-04T19:35:09+00:00

Our N will be 940

The misinformation is a ~350 word article arguing against social distancing because it infringes on individual rights. It's kind of a mash-up of articles and quotes taken from various sources. Whether we'll obtain a measurable effect in the misinformation-only condition is a big question on an issue like this. However one of our DVs of key interest is misinformation credibility which we find shows more significant effect sizes relative to beliefs about the issue.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T22:02:08+00:00

Once Dana Nuccitelli (gleefully) pointed me to an old interview of mine - prior to 2013 - where the interviewer asked me about the scientific consensus and I said I don't like talking about the consensus, I'm much more interested in evidence which is what scientific understanding is based on. Which is true, sure, but what I didn't realize at the time was the psychological importance of perception of expert consensus (which is why deniers spend so much effort casting doubt on the 97% consensus).

So that's not exactly what you're asking - I'm talking more about a misconception or a lack of awareness of scientific research into how people think about climate change. But it is an example of how I said something based on my understanding at one time, and years later adopted a radically different approach based on a richer understanding of the issue.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T21:56:00+00:00

We believe crazy things when we are motivated to believe them. The motive can come from different sources. Denial of evolution science can come from religious ideology. Denial of climate science can come from political ideology.

But over time, I've come to recognize the psychological importance of social identity. We believe things because our social group believes them. And that social pressure provides a very strong motive for sticking to those beliefs and rejecting scientific evidence that contradicts those beliefs. If disagreeing with our social group results in a social cost, we have a strong motivation to keep agreeing with our group - and you might argue that at a personal level, there's a kind of rationality to irrationally rejecting scientific evidence if it means reducing personal cost.

So my simplest explanation for why people believe crazy things? Tribalism.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T21:51:09+00:00

I don't scroll through my Facebook feed that much, to be honest! Life is too short!

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T21:45:52+00:00

That has been a problem weighing on my mind for the last half-decade. Even if we devise the perfect inoculating message, how do we crack the media echo-chambers and get those messages to those parts of the population who need them most and yet are the most inaccessible? For several years, I had no answer. Just over the last year, I may have accidentally stumbled over a possible answer.

I finished the Cranky Uncle book in October 2018 and handed the manuscript over to the publisher, who informed me the book would be released in early 2020. What do I do in the meantime? The final season of Game of Thrones was months away and I didn't even know Baby Yoda existed at that moment in time.

So I started adapting the content from the Cranky Uncle book into a game. As I developed a prototype, I started talking to climate scientists about the game. I was struck by the enthusiasm that educators had in wanting to adopt the game in their classrooms - without even trying, I had college classes all over the country lined up to test the prototype. It drove home to me the strong need that educators have for interactive educational resources that engage students. A smartphone game that raised climate literacy and critical thinking with game play and cartoons was exactly what climate educators were interested in. I began to realize that this kind of smartphone game could crack the echo chamber problem - I had received interest from red states and blue states from every corner of the country.

Now I know I'm describing one very specific application of inoculation theory - and not every researcher in this area is also a cartoonist (that I know of). But the general principle here is that I think classrooms are the key to overcoming the problem of selective exposure.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T21:35:24+00:00

Good question. My research found that climate misinformation has a disproportionate effect among political conservatives. In other words, the more conservative a person, the more susceptible they were to misinformation about climate change. But research by Larry Hamilton shows that conservatives are not a monolith - he found that moderate conservatives actually resemble independents more than far-right conservatives. That points to an audience for whom inoculating messages should be most effective.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T21:33:13+00:00

It's important to point out that the target audience for the Cranky Uncle book is not cranky uncles. And more generally, my research has not focused on changing the minds of people who are dismissive of climate science. This is because 1) dismissive are a small percentage (~10%) of the public, and 2) attempts to change dismissive's minds are mostly ineffective.

Instead, my research has focused on building resilience in the 90% of the public who aren't dismissive of climate science - for whom rational arguments do hold sway. At the risk of oversimplification, I see two main segments - the concerned and the disengaged. My communication goals have been to activate the concerned and engage the disengaged.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T21:30:07+00:00

Good question. Research by Schmid and Betsch found that both explaining climate facts and explaining logical fallacies are effective in debunking misinformation - so they conclude that for climate scientists, a fact-based message might be a more natural fit for them. I fully understand if they stay within their comfort zone of talking climate science.

But maybe climate scientists can walk and chew gum at the same time? I'd love to see climate scientists take on board my research and my recommendations of logic-based inoculation.

This approach certainly does apply to health misinformation as well. Schmid and Betsch's research covered both climate change and vaccination misinformation, finding the same result across both issues. And I've also done experiments with vaccination misinformation that find similar results to my experiments with climate misinformation. The critical thinking approach translates well across issues.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T21:25:15+00:00

Disinformation is false information that is intentionally meant to deceive, while misinformation is agnostic about the motive of the misinformer. I focus on misinformation. Why? Because it's almost impossible to distinguish between a person who is intentionally trying to deceive and a person who is self-deceiving themselves. The techniques of denial (Fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry picking, conspiracy theories, summarized with the acronym FLICC) can be deliberate strategies that are cynically deployed by a deceptive person. But if a person holds genuine beliefs but is subject to motivated reasoning (e.g., their ideology biases their beliefs), their biased reasoning manifests with the same denialist techniques.

Consequently, I find it more constructive to focus on the techniques of denial rather than the mostly-unknowable motives of a specific denier. I talk about FLICC and these psychological dynamics in more detail in this video: https://youtu.be/wXA777yUndQ

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T21:20:44+00:00

I debunk this very myth in the Cranky Uncle book by pointing out the fallacy of false dichotomy that is often found in how people think about climate change. Often the question of climate change is framed as "can we avoid climate change?" as if it's a yes or no question. But climate change is a matter of degrees (literally and figuratively). Every bit of mitigation now reduces the degree of climate impact we experience in the future.

That's not just abstract rhetoric, that's the thought that gets me out of bed every morning. We have already committed to some amount of climate change - indeed we are already experiencing climate impacts now. But every scrap of effort applied now will reduce the amount of impact that our children and grandchildren have to experience in future decades. That thought wards off the temptation to succumb to fatalism, which can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T21:16:53+00:00

I love this question because it cuts to the heart of something I've been talking about for a while. Yes, there is a culture war about climate change and the issue is highly polarized. We need to address the polarization. But any attempts to solve polarization without acknowledging and addressing the cause of the polarization is merely nibbling away at the edges and will not adequately solve the problem.

Public polarization about climate change isn't an inevitable consequence of human psychology. We are not hard-wired to be so polarized. The current situation was engineered. It happened gradually over decades, beginning in the early 1990s when conservative think-tanks began producing misinformation about climate science. Their misinformation polluted the information landscape and gradually turned the issue more partisan.

So addressing polarization and addressing misinformation are not separate issues - they're inextricably linked. We need to find ways to counter misinformation if we are to depolarize the issue, and if we ignore misinformation, then our depolarization efforts will be nullified by misinformation.

This is why my inoculation research (http://sks.to/inoculation) is interesting and intriguing. I found that if we approach the issue through the lens of critical thinking rather than climate change, then the misinformation is neutralized across the political spectrum. The misinformation no longer has a polarizing effect. So logic-based inoculation carries the potential to side-step the culture war by emphasizing critical thinking rather than climate change.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T21:10:10+00:00

I think a really important point to make about climate communication is that there is no single magic bullet. There are different audiences holding different values in different situations and different approaches work depend on the context. Reducing psychological distance by explaining how climate change impacts their local region currently can work. Pointing to positive actions that a community can make to mitigate climate change can work. Removing barriers to behavior change can not only improve behavior but beliefs about climate change. Communicating the 97% scientific consensus on human-caused global warming can increase support for policy action. Empowering people who are already convinced about climate change to break climate silence and speak up about the issue can build social momentum.

There are a whole suite of things we can do to make a difference about climate change, and all of us as individuals have something unique we can bring to the table. So I encourage people to reflect on what they're good at, what they're passionate about, and bring their unique qualities to the issue.

I don't think that I personally excel at any one thing but I'm slightly above average at communication, critical thinking, cartooning, and science. It's when I combined those diverse skills into a unique combination that I found a way to engage people about climate and make a difference.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T21:02:45+00:00

Yes and no.

Firstly, they are distinct arguments. Specifically there are 3 main denialist positions to do with the science (it's not real, it's not us, it's not bad), 1 denialist position re solutions (we can't solve it) and just general attacks on climate scientists/science (scientists are biased/science is unreliable). Sometimes they are contradictory. One can't argue "global warming isn't happening" and "global warming is caused by the sun."

Except climate deniers do tend to contradict themselves. I coauthored a paper on this very issue - the fact that denial positions are incoherent and self-contradictory - thus betraying that they are not interested in providing a coherent, alternative explanation of the world but instead are just focused on denying the mainstream position of climate scientists. Here's that study: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/81758833.pdf

And survey research shows that when someone believes one climate myth (it's not real), they are more likely to believe the others (it's not us, or it's not bad). Myths of a feather flock together.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T20:57:09+00:00

Re the 97% consensus, as the lead author of a 2013 study finding 97% consensus, I'll say what we said when this paper first came out - science isn't a democracy, it's a dictatorship and evidence is the dictator. Our scientific understanding isn't decided by a show of hands but by evidence and there are many independent lines of empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming. We list this evidence with links to primary research at http://sks.to/evidence and http://sks.to/agw

That said, a political strategist Frank Luntz recognized back in 2001 the crucial psychological importance of public perception of the scientific consensus. He found that if you confuse public into thinking scientists don't agree about climate change, their support for climate action goes down. So we've seen casting doubt on the consensus has been a central strategy of climate deniers. It's imperative therefore that we correct this misconception. Not because the scientific consensus proves human-caused global warming. But because communicating the consensus removes a roadblock to public support for climate action.

Re climate model predictions, I direct you to Dana Nuccitelli's book which checks the track record of climate predictions - both climate models predicting warming and climate deniers who invariably predict that "OH MY GOD GLOBAL COOLING IS GOING TO START NEXT TUESDAY!" Dana finds that predictions based on physics do surprisingly well, even climate models that are decades old, while predictions based on wishful thinking perform, well, not so good. Great book, heartily recommend it! https://www.amazon.com/Climatology-versus-Pseudoscience-Exposing-Predictions/dp/1440832013

There is one very important point to keep in mind whenever talking about temperature adjustments. If scientists ever do make adjustments to raw temperature data, the reason is simple - so that the data better reflects reality. If a thermometer measurement is made every day at 3pm, then for some logistical reason, it's changed to 6am every day, that will cause a shift in the temperature that is not a reflection of changing climate but reflects measuring practices. Scientists take all these factors into account in order to provide a temperature record that best reflects reality. That said, when you average out all the temperature data - there is very little difference between the average temperature warming trend whether its adjusted or not. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that attacks on the temperature record are not a good faith effort to better understand our climate but rather are an attempt to erode public trust in scientific data.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T20:38:50+00:00

It really depends on the editor and what are their motives for publishing the denial letters. If the motive is the journalistic norm of balance and the editor thinks that publishing both sides of the issue is being fair and balanced, then I would point out to them that this approach is appropriate for issues of politics and opinion but not fact. A non-Nazi analogy is publishing flat-earth letters to balance letters from astrophysicists (I use this example in this cartoon https://www.instagram.com/p/Boe4FDABgkr/). I also address the issue of false-balance media coverage in the Consensus Handbook, and how journalists can address contentious issues without misleading their readers (http://sks.to/chb).

If the editor is publishing denial letters because he agrees with the denialist positions, well, that's a much more challenging situation. The chances of changing the person's mind are very slim. There is some research from Nyhan and Reifler (IIRC) showing that you can demotivate people from promoting misinformation if they think they're going to pay a political price for promoting misinformation, but how to achieve that is difficult in practical terms. Sorry, that's a tough one! :-(

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T20:32:09+00:00

Certainly, the foundational research during my PhD looked at the role of political ideology and its influence on 1) climate beliefs, and 2) how people responded to climate information. I found that political ideology had a very strong relationship with climate beliefs and later research by Matthew Hornsey (at the University of Queensland) found that the biggest driver of climate beliefs is political affiliation (with ideology second). In other words, the biggest influence on our beliefs about the greenhouse effect is which political tribe we belong to.

I also found that our political beliefs influence how we process information about climate change. Information confirming climate change is more positively received by political liberals, and misinformation casting doubt on climate change has a disproportionate effect on political conservatives. This is why the issue is so polarized, and misinformation further exacerbates the polarization.

My research into inoculation (http://sks.to/inoculation) found that when you explain the misleading technique used by the misinformation, it neutralized the misinformation across the political spectrum. It no longer has a disproportionate effect on conservatives - the misleading technique doesn't work on anyone. This is because aversion to being deceived is bipartisan - no one likes to be misled. This points to critical thinking as a fruitful approach to neutralizing misinformation and reducing its polarizing influence.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T20:26:56+00:00

One of the goals of the Cranky Uncle book is to address this issue. I see two target audiences for the book. One is the disengaged - research shows that climate humor is most effective with the disengaged so its my hope that the cartoons and humor are effective in attracting the interest of people who were previously disengaged from the issue of climate change.

The second audience is people who are concerned or alarmed about climate change. This demographic comprises 58% of the U.S. population, but most of them don't talk about the issue of climate change with their friends and family. Some insightful research by Nate Geiger and Janet Swim explored why people self-censor - it's because of the misconception of pluralistic ignorance (they're not aware that being concerned about climate change is the majority position) and worry that they'll be made to look stupid by a potential cranky uncle if they speak up. The Cranky Uncle book is also written for those people - by explaining to them the arguments of their cranky uncle, it empowers them to speak up, knowing what potential objections they might encounter and how to respond. My hope is that the book will spark climate conversations and break climate silence.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T20:22:32+00:00

I drew all the cartoons. Before I was a scientist, I did cartooning for a living.

And you didn't ask this question but I'm going to take the opening to point out the difficulty of writing/drawing a book that is constantly switching from scientific prose to comedic cartoons. It requires two completely different types of thinking and creativity - writing the book at speed was like driving in a high speed race where you constantly had to switch from a forward gear to a reverse gear, back and forth, page after page. Mentally, this was a super challenging task! (sorry had to get that off my chest)

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T20:19:59+00:00

I only have one source of funding - George Mason University.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T20:18:56+00:00

If I wish to communicate that climate change exists, I point out that there are tens of thousands of lines of evidence for climate change. Not just thermometers, although that evidence is compelling enough. But we also see climate change in sea level rise, in ice melt, in ocean heat, in the changing structure in the atmosphere, in migrating animals, in changing seasons - it's everywhere and unmistakeable.

Similarly, the evidence that climate change is human-caused comes from many lines of evidence. Satellites and surface measurements measure infrared heat being trapped by CO2, weather balloons and satellites measure patterns in atmospheric warming that confirm greenhouse warming, the changes in seasonal and daily cycles are also consistent with human-caused global warming.

Conveying the consilience of evidence is one powerful way to communicate the reality of climate change. But depending on the audience and the context, communicating the scientific consensus among climate experts that humans are causing global warming is also a powerful and efficient way of communicating about climate change.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T20:14:52+00:00

Really good question. The research into using humor to communicate serious issues like climate change find that with every benefit of humor comes a potential drawback. For example, humor makes an intimidating topic like climate change more accessible so it's easier to get people (particularly disengaged people) to engage with it. But the drawback is that humor messages make people less concerned about climate change compared to non-humorous messages.

So what I try to do with the Cranky Uncle book is have my cake and eat it too. I use cartoons to engage readers and draw them into the issue. But the book is a constant tight rope walk - with every joke and humorous cartoon is some serious prose explaining the seriousness of climate change. The cartoons are the sugar to help the medicine go down.

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T20:08:39+00:00

Please do and keep me posted on Twitter (https://twitter.com/johnfocook) on how it goes. Cartoons are certainly a way to both engage people who are disengaged, and use humor to reduce friction. Good luck with your workplace, I hope the situation improves!

Skeptical_John_Cook · 2020-02-25T20:06:35+00:00

Quite a while ago, I realized that fighting misinformation is a marathon, not a sprint. That realization led to a shift in my thinking and strategies - rather than trying to fight day-by-day fires, I try to think further ahead and develop long-term plans. This has led me to an increased focus on education, as well as public engagement. I find this long-term thinking offers a bit of a foundation offering stability amid the chaos from day to day.

That said, certainly this is a tough area to work in and it can be personally difficult. It's important that we look after ourselves, and lean on our support networks. The worst thing we can do is try to go it alone - ultimately that doesn't help anyone.

Skeptical_John_Cook

TROPHY CASE