{"id":10152,"date":"2021-02-22T15:39:25","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T21:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/?p=10152"},"modified":"2021-02-26T15:01:28","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T21:01:28","slug":"the-misinformation-age-how-false-beliefs-spread-reviewed-by-susan-bazargan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/2021\/02\/22\/the-misinformation-age-how-false-beliefs-spread-reviewed-by-susan-bazargan\/","title":{"rendered":"The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread Reviewed by Susan Bazargan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cailin O\u2019Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the first appearances of the word \u201cmisinformation\u201d is in \u201cPoverties Patience,\u201d a lengthy poem Arthur Warren wrote while in debtors\u2019 prison in 1604. Warren cautions his readers about shipwrecks caused by the \u201csweete\u201d sonnets sung by \u201cSyrens,\u201d imparting \u201cmisinformation\u201d to unsuspecting sailors\u2019 \u201cminde.\u201d And yet, the beguiling, destructive charms of misinformation have only increased in the last 400 years\u2014so much so that in December 2018, \u201cmisinformation\u201d was declared \u201cthe word of the year.\u201d To understand the reasons for the enduring power of the phenomenon, we may turn to The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread<\/em><\/a>, the work of two philosophers of science: Cailin O\u2019Connor and James O. Weatherall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The authors begin their journey even earlier, in the fourteenth century, when travelogues and eye witness accounts perpetuated the story of \u201cthe Vegetable Lamb of Tartary,\u201d a \u201cgourdlike fruit, within which could be found tiny lambs.\u201d Almost three centuries passed before the myth was debunked by a Swedish naturalist in 1683. Some may consider the belief in the vegetable lamb or in the \u201chorned hare\u201d of the American Southwest\u2014a creature with a penchant for whiskey\u2014as evidence of our gullible ancestors\u2019 ignorance. Yet, as O\u2019Connor and Weatherall point out, we can easily find similar incidents of false beliefs\u2014with more frightening consequences\u2014in our so-called enlightened age, the sorry tales woven on conspirators\u2019 looms, bought and sold on the internet market.<\/p>\n

The task the authors set for themselves is to answer questions we all ponder: \u201cWhy are false beliefs so intransigent, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary? And\u2026what can we do to change them?\u201d The authors begin, first, by dismissing the idea that human beings are rational creatures capable of making well-informed, logical decisions. This is a distorted view of humanity, they argue, that fails to recognize that people are, first and foremost, social animals, with abilities that have evolved to maintain their safety in groups. More troubling are their findings that reveal how \u201cindividually rational agents can form groups that are not rational at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using scientific models and studies, the authors explore the \u201csocial character of belief.\u201d Since most knowledge is socially produced, disseminated, and absorbed, we acquire our beliefs\u2014including false ones\u2014from social groups with which we identify. And the intense desire to belong to one\u2019s preferred group is what often shapes our so-called \u201cpersonal\u201d opinions. Thanks to the \u201cconformity bias\u201d in human psychology, we tend to agree with the members of our clique\u2014increasingly our preferred online social networks\u2014to the point that we may even find others\u2019 judgments more trustworthy than our own.<\/p>\n

Among these judgments are those emanating from propagandists, whose methods for producing and propagating misinformation have \u201cexploded in the past century.\u201d These pernicious strategies are often subtle enough to go unnoticed. Aware of the inefficacy of trying to persuade consumers by using fraudulent results, sophisticated propagandists exploit what philosophers of science call \u201cthe Problem of Induction,\u201d an argument first introduced in the eighteenth century by David Hume. Nothing in the natural world can be known for certain<\/em>, even if a phenomenon occurs on a regular daily basis. (The sun rises every day, but \u201ctomorrow could be the day it explodes.\u201d) The lack of absolute certainty about scientific discoveries allows the creation of doubt in the public mind, regarding climate change, for example, or the dangers of smoking tobacco. Exploring the long and sad history of the tobacco industry\u2019s claims about the safety of their products, O\u2019Connor and Weatherall highlight the industry\u2019s plans not to suppress science but in fact to \u201cfight science with more science\u201d: by funding and publicizing studies (in a process called \u201cselective sharing\u201d) that would create confusion by stressing the \u201cuncertainty\u201d in scientific conclusions that linked smoking to cancer. In the words of an industry executive, \u201cDoubt is\u2026the best means of competing with the \u2018body of fact\u2019 that exists in the mind of the public.\u201d Once the issue is labelled as \u201ccontroversial,\u201d the propagandists have succeeded. Witness the current day \u201cclimate deniers,\u201d whose efforts parallel those of the tobacco industry.<\/p>\n

Focusing on scientific information, the authors examine the complex social and political elements in its production and dissemination, the debates and conflicts among scientists often resulting in bitter polarizations. Using various statistical models and figures, the authors reveal the difficulties scientists encounter when trying to reach consensus in their treatment of certain diseases. For example, a \u201cdecades-long battle\u201d is still raging over the treatment of chronic Lyme disease: whether or not antibiotics should be used on a long-term basis for patients. In such volatile situations, an \u201cinfluencer\u201d\u2014even without expertise in the subject\u2014can sway the public opinion. Using \u201cthe weaponization of reputation,\u201d such a person (or social group) can have tremendous power over the actions of large segments of the population. The \u201creal threat\u201d to science, the authors argue, is \u201cfrom those people who manipulate scientific knowledge for their own interests or obscure it from the policy makers who might act on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

One solution the authors offer is to \u201cabandon industry funding for scientific research.\u201d Given the exorbitant cost of conducting research, industries can skew the results by being selective in their choice of the projects they fund and by monitoring the publication of the experiments\u2019 findings. Yet, if the cost has to be publicly funded, as the authors argue, they remain silent on which segment of the population is to shoulder the cost and how such a shift should be implemented. They also propose that scientists wait and reach consensus before publishing the results of their experiments since \u201cdissent often sows confusion.\u201d Furthermore, journalists should also be careful in their efforts at fairness to \u201cboth sides\u201d of a scientific debate, particularly in cases such as climate change, when the numbers and solid evidence offered by those holding one position far outweigh those of the opposing one.<\/p>\n

The authors further recommend we follow Europeans countries which have created \u201ctask forces\u201d designed to combat the spread of disinformation, in part by holding media companies responsible for content considered \u201cunlawful\u201d (such as hate speech). Anticipating the objections based on \u201cfree speech\u201d arguments, the authors point out that the goal here is not to limit speech but prevent it from \u201cposing as something it is not.\u201d The question one may ask, however, is how the agencies in charge of such task forces will be elected and what tools they can implement.
\nThe book was published in 2019, in pre-pandemic times and before recent political upheavals; thus the authors\u2019 proposal that we \u201cre-imagine\u201d our democracy seems prescient. In such a society, \u201ca well-ordered science\u2026free of the corrupting forces of self-interest, ignorance, and manipulation\u201d can operate. The vision may seem utopian, they admit, but it is an ideal towards which we can aspire.<\/p>\n

Unlike many treatises by philosophers, O\u2019Connor and Weatherall\u2019s study remains accessible to the general reader. The prose is free of jargon, with choice anecdotes and examples from a shared cultural history (the saga of the tobacco industry among others) supporting what may seem like dry scientific data and models. Readers interested in the topic will also find the extensive notes and substantial bibliography valuable. However, given the authors\u2019 emphasis on the production and distribution of knowledge as a social phenomenon, I expected at least a basic analysis of the dynamics of online interactions that generate misinformation: how human emotions are manipulated on social media, for example, to spread falsehoods. I was also hoping the authors would take on the issue of trust and trust-building, not only between the general public and scientists, but also between communities with conflicting viewpoints. More fundamental to the topic at hand\u2014and perhaps beyond the scope of the authors\u2019 discussion\u2014is a rigorous study of the role of language, which is the crucial means by which misinformation is conveyed. Information literacy, after all, depends a great deal on developing the kind of deciphering skills that allow us to recognize logical fallacies. As the authors state, while algorithmic solutions are useful, \u201cdetermining what is true is a difficult, time-consuming, and human-labor-intensive process.\u201d That labor falls on all our shoulders, especially on educators as leaders who, like Odysseus, can steer the crew-members on deck clear of the false seductions of sirens\u2019 songs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cailin O\u2019Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread One of the first appearances of the word \u201cmisinformation\u201d is in \u201cPoverties Patience,\u201d a lengthy poem Arthur Warren wrote while in debtors\u2019 prison in 1604. Warren cautions his readers about shipwrecks caused by the \u201csweete\u201d sonnets sung by \u201cSyrens,\u201d imparting \u201cmisinformation\u201d to <\/p>\n

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