Global Economic Intersection
Advertisement
  • Home
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Investments
    • Invest in Amazon $250
  • Cryptocurrency
    • Best Bitcoin Accounts
    • Bitcoin Robot
      • Quantum AI
      • Bitcoin Era
      • Bitcoin Aussie System
      • Bitcoin Profit
      • Bitcoin Code
      • eKrona Cryptocurrency
      • Bitcoin Up
      • Bitcoin Prime
      • Yuan Pay Group
      • Immediate Profit
      • BitQH
      • Bitcoin Loophole
      • Crypto Boom
      • Bitcoin Treasure
      • Bitcoin Lucro
      • Bitcoin System
      • Oil Profit
      • The News Spy
      • Bitcoin Buyer
      • Bitcoin Inform
      • Immediate Edge
      • Bitcoin Evolution
      • Cryptohopper
      • Ethereum Trader
      • BitQL
      • Quantum Code
      • Bitcoin Revolution
      • British Trade Platform
      • British Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Reddit
    • Celebrities
      • Dr. Chris Brown Bitcoin
      • Teeka Tiwari Bitcoin
      • Russell Brand Bitcoin
      • Holly Willoughby Bitcoin
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Investments
    • Invest in Amazon $250
  • Cryptocurrency
    • Best Bitcoin Accounts
    • Bitcoin Robot
      • Quantum AI
      • Bitcoin Era
      • Bitcoin Aussie System
      • Bitcoin Profit
      • Bitcoin Code
      • eKrona Cryptocurrency
      • Bitcoin Up
      • Bitcoin Prime
      • Yuan Pay Group
      • Immediate Profit
      • BitQH
      • Bitcoin Loophole
      • Crypto Boom
      • Bitcoin Treasure
      • Bitcoin Lucro
      • Bitcoin System
      • Oil Profit
      • The News Spy
      • Bitcoin Buyer
      • Bitcoin Inform
      • Immediate Edge
      • Bitcoin Evolution
      • Cryptohopper
      • Ethereum Trader
      • BitQL
      • Quantum Code
      • Bitcoin Revolution
      • British Trade Platform
      • British Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Reddit
    • Celebrities
      • Dr. Chris Brown Bitcoin
      • Teeka Tiwari Bitcoin
      • Russell Brand Bitcoin
      • Holly Willoughby Bitcoin
No Result
View All Result
Global Economic Intersection
No Result
View All Result

Inoculating Against Science Denial

admin by admin
April 27, 2015
in Uncategorized
0
0
SHARES
1
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

by John Cook, The Conversation

Science denial has real, societal consequences. Denial of the link between HIV and AIDS led to more than 330,000 premature deaths in South Africa. Denial of the link between smoking and cancer has caused millions of premature deaths. Thanks to vaccination denial, preventable diseases are making a comeback.

Denial is not something we can ignore or, well, deny. So what does scientific research say is the most effective response? Common wisdom says that communicating more science should be the solution. But a growing body of evidence indicates that this approach can actually backfire, reinforcing people’s prior beliefs.

When you present evidence that threatens a person’s worldview, it can actually strengthen their beliefs. This is called the “worldview backfire effect”. One of the first scientific experiments that observed this effect dates back to 1975.

A psychologist from the University of Kansas presented evidence to teenage Christians that Jesus Christ did not come back from the dead. Now, the evidence wasn’t genuine; it was created for the experiment to see how the participants would react.

What happened was their faith actually strengthened in response to evidence challenging their faith. This type of reaction happens across a range of issues. When US Republicans are given evidence of no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, they believe more strongly that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. When you debunk the myth linking vaccination to autism, anti-vaxxers respond by opposing vaccination more strongly.

In my own research, when I’ve informed strong political conservatives that there’s a scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming, they become less accepting that humans are causing climate change.

Brute force meets resistance

Ironically, the practice of throwing more science at science denial ignores the social science research into denial. You can’t adequately address this issue without considering the root cause: personal beliefs and ideology driving the rejection of scientific evidence. Attempts at science communication that ignore the potent influence effect of worldview can be futile or even counterproductive.

How then should scientists respond to science denial? The answer lies in a branch of psychology dating back to the 1960s known as “inoculation theory”. Inoculation is an idea that changed history: stop a virus from spreading by exposing people to a weak form of the virus. This simple concept has saved millions of lives.

In the psychological domain, inoculation theory applies the concept of inoculation to knowledge. When we teach science, we typically restrict ourselves to just explaining the science. This is like giving people vitamins. We’re providing the information required for a healthier understanding. But vitamins don’t necessarily grant immunity against a virus.

There is a similar dynamic with misinformation. You might have a healthy understanding of the science. But if you encounter a myth that distorts the science, you’re confronted with a conflict between the science and the myth. If you don’t understand the technique used to distort the science, you have no way to resolve that conflict.

Half a century of research into inoculation theory has found that the way to neutralise misinformation is to expose people to a weak form of the misinformation. The way to achieve this is to explain the fallacy employed by the myth. Once people understand the techniques used to distort the science, they can reconcile the myth with the fact.


Skeptical Science

There is perhaps no more apt way to demonstrate inoculation theory than to address a myth about vaccination. A persistent myth about vaccination is that it causes autism.

This myth originated from a Lancet study which was subsequently shown to be fraudulent and was retracted by the journal. Nevertheless, the myth persists simply due to the persuasive fact that some children have developed autism around the same time they were vaccinated.

This myth uses the logical fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc, Latin for “after this, therefore because of this”. This is a fallacy because correlation does not imply causation. Just because one event happens around the same time as another event doesn’t imply that one causes the other.

The only way to demonstrate causation is through statistically rigorous scientific research. Many studies have investigated this issue and shown conclusively that there is no link between vaccination and autism.

Inoculating minds

The response to science denial is not just more science. We stop science denial by exposing people to a weak form of science denial. We need to inoculate minds against misinformation.

The practical application of inoculation theory is already happening in classrooms, with educators adopting the teaching approach of misconception-based learning (also known as agnotology-based learning or refutational teaching).

This involves teaching science by debunking misconceptions about the science. This approach results in significantly higher learning gains than customary lectures that simply teach the science.

While this is currently happening in a few classrooms, Massive Open Online Courses (or MOOCs) offer the opportunity to scale up this teaching approach to reach potentially hundreds of thousands of students. At the University of Queensland, we’re launching a MOOC that makes sense of climate science denial.

Our approach draws upon inoculation theory, educational research into misconception-based learning and the cognitive psychology of debunking. We explain the psychological research into why and how people deny climate science.

Having laid the framework, we examine the fallacies behind the most common climate myths. Our goal is for students to learn how to identify the techniques used to distort climate science and feel confident responding to misinformation.

A typical response of scientists to science denial is to teach more science. But that only provides half of what’s needed. Scientific research has offered us a solution: build resistance to science denial by exposing people to a weak form of science denial.

The ConversationThis article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Previous Post

Why Comcast Walked Away

Next Post

27Apr2015 Market Update: New Highs For The SP500, Gold Above 1200 And The U.S. Dollar Sinking Along With Equities

Related Posts

Bitcoin Flirts With $24K, How High Will It Go?
Economics

Bitcoin Flirts With $24K, How High Will It Go?

by John Wanguba
February 3, 2023
Venezuela's PDVSA Toughens Oil Prepayment Terms
Business

Venezuela’s PDVSA Toughens Oil Prepayment Terms

by John Wanguba
February 2, 2023
German Economy Unexpectedly Contracts In Q4, Renewing Recession Fears
Economics

German Economy Unexpectedly Contracts In Q4, Renewing Recession Fears

by John Wanguba
February 2, 2023
Judge Dismisses Proposed Class-Action Suit Claiming Coinbase Securities Sales
Business

Judge Dismisses Proposed Class-Action Suit Claiming Coinbase Securities Sales

by John Wanguba
February 2, 2023
Aesop Targeted In $2bn Bidding War Between French Groups
Business

Aesop Targeted In $2bn Bidding War Between French Groups

by John Wanguba
February 1, 2023
Next Post

27Apr2015 Market Update: New Highs For The SP500, Gold Above 1200 And The U.S. Dollar Sinking Along With Equities

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Browse by Category

  • Business
  • Econ Intersect News
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Uncategorized

Browse by Tags

adoption altcoins banking banks Binance Bitcoin Bitcoin adoption Bitcoin market Bitcoin mining blockchain BTC business China crypto crypto adoption cryptocurrency crypto exchange crypto market crypto regulation decentralized finance DeFi Elon Musk ETH Ethereum Europe finance FTX inflation investment market analysis markets Metaverse mining NFT nonfungible tokens oil market price analysis recession regulation Russia technology Tesla the UK the US Twitter

Archives

  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • August 2010
  • August 2009

Categories

  • Business
  • Econ Intersect News
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Uncategorized
Global Economic Intersection

After nearly 11 years of 24/7/365 operation, Global Economic Intersection co-founders Steven Hansen and John Lounsbury are retiring. The new owner, a global media company in London, is in the process of completing the set-up of Global Economic Intersection files in their system and publishing platform. The official website ownership transfer took place on 24 August.

Categories

  • Business
  • Econ Intersect News
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Uncategorized

Recent Posts

  • Bitcoin Flirts With $24K, How High Will It Go?
  • Venezuela’s PDVSA Toughens Oil Prepayment Terms
  • German Economy Unexpectedly Contracts In Q4, Renewing Recession Fears

© Copyright 2021 EconIntersect - Economic news, analysis and opinion.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • Bitcoin Robot
    • Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Code
    • Quantum AI
    • eKrona Cryptocurrency
    • Bitcoin Up
    • Bitcoin Prime
    • Yuan Pay Group
    • Immediate Profit
    • BitIQ
    • Bitcoin Loophole
    • Crypto Boom
    • Bitcoin Era
    • Bitcoin Treasure
    • Bitcoin Lucro
    • Bitcoin System
    • Oil Profit
    • The News Spy
    • British Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Trader
  • Bitcoin Reddit

© Copyright 2021 EconIntersect - Economic news, analysis and opinion.

en English
ar Arabicbg Bulgarianda Danishnl Dutchen Englishfi Finnishfr Frenchde Germanel Greekit Italianja Japaneselv Latvianno Norwegianpl Polishpt Portuguesero Romanianes Spanishsv Swedish