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| I'll be traveling this week, so posts will be whenever I can find the time to make them. Like now, before I get some sleep so I can leave early in the morning. Another older article today, an Ars Technica piece from 2019. This is significant, because clearly, the "techniques" they discuss therein didn't work to combat the misinformation and anti-science rhetoric that amped up in the following year. Two tactics effectively limit the spread of science denialism  Debunking the content or techniques of denialism mitigates their impact. Does it, though? Does it really? “Vaccines are safe and effective,” write researchers Philipp Schmid and Cornelia Betsch in a paper published in Nature Human Behavior this week. Again... 2019. “Humans cause global warming. Evolution theory explains the diversity and change of life.” But large numbers of people do not believe that these statements are true, with devastating effects: progress toward addressing the climate crisis is stultifyingly slow, and the US is seeing its largest measles outbreak since 2000. I checked the statistics, and yes, the one in 2019 was even larger than the current measles outbreak... so far. In their paper, Schmid and Betsch present some good news and some bad: rebutting misinformation reduces the ensuing level of science denialism, but not enough to completely counter the effect of the original exposure to misinformation. If what we've seen over the past five years is a reduction, I'd hate to have seen the unmitigated disaster. Schmid and Betsch make a point of emphasizing that science denialism is a universe away from a healthy skepticism. In fact, skepticism of existing results is what drives research to refine and overturn existing paradigms. Denialism, the authors write, is “dysfunctional” skepticism “driven by how the denier would like things to be rather than what he has evidence for.” There's also, I think, a knowledge gap involved. If you don't know how to fly a helicopter, don't get behind the controls of one. If you think you know how to fly a helicopter because you've seen action movies, you're wrong. Similarly, if you think you know everything about vaccines because you've watched a few videos online, you're wrong. I don't know everything about vaccines, but I have the advantage of living in the same house as an epidemiologist. And usually that of recognizing good science as opposed to bad. Schmid and Betsch focused on strategies to counter misinformation as it is being delivered during a debate, focusing on two possible approaches: correcting misinformation and laying bare the rhetorical techniques that are being used to obfuscate the truth. Maybe part of the problem is allowing it to get to the point of debate. When you get a flat-earther up on stage discussing the shape of the planet with a... well, with anyone with brains, you're putting them on equal footing. You shouldn't do that. Flat-earth nonsense needs to be nipped in the bud, even if it does make the flat-earther feel persecuted and perversely vindicated. They can have their own platform, not one shared with scientists. Flat-earth bullshit is only the most obvious of these types of "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge" things, though. For instance, in the case of vaccine denialism, a denier might argue that vaccines are not completely safe. Correcting this misinformation (which Schmid and Betsch call a “topic” rebuttal) could take the form of arguing that vaccines in fact have an excellent safety record. A “technique” rebuttal, on the other hand, would point out that demanding perfect safety is holding vaccines to an impossible standard and that no medication is 100 percent safe. "See? It's only 99.9999% safe! Why take the chance?" Because failing to vaccinate causes more death. The article goes into the methods used in the study, then: But one thing seems clear: it could be better to turn up and debate a denialist than to stay away, a tactic that is sometimes advocated out of fear of legitimizing the denialism. Which is exactly the opposite of what I just said up there. This can tell us all three things: 1) I'm not an expert, either (but I can generally spot experts); 2) I can be wrong; 3) Unlike denialists, I can admit when I'm wrong. Still, I'm not going to debate any of these things in person. My memory is too crappy, my knowledge is too broad and not deep enough, and I'm not much of a public speaker. There's no way I could keep up with the flood of misinformation and outright lies that the denialist (of whatever) is spouting. If someone else wants to do it, someone with actual credentials and who's not going to freeze up on stage, go for it. But the bullshit comes too fast. A lie is wiping its dick on the curtains while the truth is still struggling to get the condom on. It's an uphill battle. Sisyphean, even, because once you push the boulder to the top of the hill, they'll roll it right back down again. And yet, I have to try. |
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