Misinformation in Science Stephan Lewandowsky University of Bristol and University of Western Australia stephan.lewandowsky@bristol.ac.uk @STWorg St. Malo, 24 October 2017

Misinformation in Climate Science Stephan Lewandowsky University of Bristol and University of Western Australia stephan.lewandowsky@bristol.ac.uk @STWorg St. Malo, 24 October 2017

Today The “post-truth” world: Do facts matter? The crucible of the post-truth world: climate change Misinformation in climate science Implications of “false balance” Communicating science under adversity

Today The “post-truth” world: Do facts matter? The crucible of the post-truth world: climate change Misinformation in climate science Implications of “false balance” Communicating science under adversity

“Post-Fact” World—“Post-Truth” Politics “post-fact” “post-truth” Number of media hits https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016 “post-truth” Word of the year 2016 (Oxford Dictionaries)

U.S. Presidential Candidates

Do Facts Matter? (Swire, Berinsky, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017) Present online sample (MTurk workers) with Trump statements true or false attributed to Trump or unattributed obtain belief ratings Donald Trump said that vaccines cause autism (MISINFORMATION) Donald Trump said that the US spent $2 trillion on the war in Iraq (FACT)

Do Facts Matter? (Swire, Berinsky, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017) Present online sample (MTurk workers) with Trump statements true or false attributed to Trump or unattributed obtain belief ratings Rebut (affirm) false (true) statements ask for belief ratings immediately or week later Donald Trump said that vaccines cause autism (MISINFORMATION) Donald Trump said that the US spent $2 trillion on the war in Iraq (FACT)

Belief Ratings (Swire et al., 2017)

Voting Intentions (Swire et al., 2017)

Voting Intentions (Swire et al., 2016) Degree of belief change after correction of misinformation did not correlate with change in voting intentions Effect has been replicated with different methodology (Nyhan et al., 2017)

Facts Don’t Matter: Now What?

Today The “post-truth” world: Do facts matter? The crucible of the post-truth world: climate change Misinformation in climate science Implications of “false balance” Communicating science under adversity

The Problem  1C Global Temperature

97.1% 97.5% Scientific Consensus The climate is changing. Humans are causing it. It’s a problem. 97.1% agreement in climate literature 97.5% agreement among climate scientists Various sources eg Cook et al 2013

Consensus on Consensus

Expertise and Consensus

Deference to Consensus can be Epistemically Justified (Miller, 2013) Social calibration all parties to consensus committed to same evidential standards and formalisms Concilience of evidence variety of lines of evidence that converge on same conclusion Social diversity consensus is socially diverse

Deference to Consensus can be Epistemically Justified (Miller, 2013) Social calibration all parties to consensus committed to same evidential standards and formalisms Concilience of evidence variety of lines of evidence that converge on same conclusion Social diversity consensus is socially diverse Commitment to scientific method and norms shared by scientists Many independent lines of evidence: Global temperatures Sea level rise Cryosphere mass loss Biological markers Consensus endorsed by virtually all scientific institutions in the world

Notwithstanding the Consensus “With all the hysteria, all the fear, all the phony science, could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? I believe it is.” —U.S. Senator James Inhofe Congressional Record, 2003 Oklahoma State Capitol

Oklahoma State Capitol

Today The “post-truth” world: Do facts matter? The crucible of the post-truth world: climate change Misinformation in climate science Implications of “false balance” Communicating science under adversity

“… official climate models got their predictions so hopelessly wrong … “… official climate models got their predictions so hopelessly wrong …. [in 2007] none of them predicted a temporary fall in global temperatures of 0.7 degrees, equal to their entire net rise in the 20th century…” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/22/what-happened-to-putting-childrens-welfare-first/ Christopher Booker, 22 October 2016

“fall of 0.7 degrees” 0.7C https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/oct/21/global-warming-continues-2016-will-be-the-hottest-year-ever-recorded#img-2

January 2007 – January 2008 https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/10/23/desperate-denial/

Sea Level Rise

Blind Test With Economists and Statisticians 6 different scenarios involving various climate indicators contrarian statements sampled from media and online sources Google search reveals high prevalence on contrarian blogs Hence statements not cherry-picked mainstream scientific statements checked by climate experts Lewandowsky, Ballard, Oberauer, & Benestad (2016).

Sample Trial

Combine items into correctness score

Statisticians

The Public is Denied the Right to be Adequately Informed about Risks Misleading contrarian interpretations reduce people’s acceptance of climate science (Ranney & Clark, 2016; McCright et al., 2016)

Rhetorical Symmetry Does Not Imply Substantive Symmetry Not all opinions deserve to be balanced No, you are not entitled to your opinion…. …. unless it is supported by fact, evidence, or argument

Today The “post-truth” world: Do facts matter? The crucible of the post-truth world: climate change Misinformation in climate science Implications of “false balance” Communicating science under adversity

False Media Balance (nearly 1,000 media articles; Brüggemann & Engesser, 2017)

Australia’s Channel 7 Sunrise (January 2011) Two ‘experts’ being interviewed on global warming

NZ ‘Weather Expert,’ Mr. Ken Ring Author of: Pawmistry: How to Read your Cats’ Paws Cats have seven different types of paw and those bearing the “Earth Paw” are courageous, spontaneous and should not be cornered because they become “disorientated and confused.”

Balance Matters Even When Consensus is Known (Koehler, 2016) High consensus

Results (Koehler, 2016)

Public Perception of Consensus U.S. Data “Balance as bias” media coverage

Knowledge of Consensus is “Gateway Belief”

Today The “post-truth” world: Do facts matter? The crucible of the post-truth world: climate change Misinformation in climate science Implications of “false balance” Communicating science under adversity

Suspicion and Inoculation Research shows that correction is effective if people are: provided with an alternative skeptical of a source suspicious of motives underlying initial information Research shows that misinformation finds less traction if people are warned or inoculated

Inoculation (Cook, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017) 97.1% agreement in climate literature 97.5% agreement among climate scientists Information about the tobacco industry’s use of “fake experts” to generate appearance of a debate when there was none

Inoculation (Cook, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017) Inoculation messages neutralized effects of ‘false balance’

Exposing Climate Denial Rhetorical techniques (today) judged to be misleading in blind test Merchants of Doubt (Oreskes) similarity to tobacco “Cool dudes” (Dunlap, McCright) ideological motivation Conservative “think” tanks (Jacques, Dunlap). 92% of “skeptical” books have think tank background Psychological variables (Lewandowsky) conspiratorial thinking and incoherent reasoning

Summary of Interventions

Thank You http://www.bristol.ac.uk/posttruthexperts/

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Asymmetric Decline in Trust in Science (Gauchat, 2012)

Asymmetric Attitudes to Science In laboratory experiments with synthetic scenarios: no clear cognitive differences between people with different worldviews or political leanings In surveys involving actual scientific issues: rejection seems centered on political right no evidence of symmetry no evidence of science rejection by political left Vaccinations (Hamilton, Lewandowsky) Genetically Modified Organisms (Lewandowsky, Hamilton) HIV-AIDS (Lewandowsky) Tobacco-lung cancer (Lewandowsky)

Worldview and Science (e.g., Lewandowsky et al., 2013) C:\Users\Lewan\Documents\MATLAB\Teaching of MatLab\ESCOPSS2010\Demos SL\plotrwithinbounds.m

Alternative Realities