• Question: How can scientists (and science communication) help to prevent misinformation and fake news?

    Asked by anon-254830 on 8 Jul 2020.
    • Photo: Oli Wilson

      Oli Wilson answered on 8 Jul 2020:


      This is a really important question, because countering misconceptions and deliberate misinformation in science is difficult, but it can literally save lives (like with vaccines).
      One reason it’s difficult is because we’re more likely to accept information that fits with our view of the world or ourselves, even if it’s not true. This means scientific falsehoods can get tied up with people’s sense of identity, so it can be difficult to challenge them effectively. When this happens, trying to debunk a falsehood can feel like an attack on the person who believes it – they understandably become defensive and so hold on tighter to the incorrect information. That’s why countering misinformation with facts alone doesn’t work – empathy, understanding and human connections are vital. There’s a great summary of this in the context of climate change here: https://youtu.be/nkMIjbDtdo0
      Because of this (and as you say in your question), prevention is better than cure – especially since fake news can spread better than the truth. One possibility is a kind of ‘fake news vaccine’ – giving people skills to spot signs of misinformation, so they recognise misinformation and are less likely to believe or spread it. There’s more information about an example of this here: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/fake-news-vaccine-works-pre-bunk-game-reduces-susceptibility-to-disinformation. It can be effective, so maybe it should be better incorporated in more science communication efforts.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 8 Jul 2020:


      I think it’s so important for scientists to be very explicit on what they do / do not know and to communicate in easy, accessible language to help the broader population engage in the ‘real data’ and to develop an interest in sciences as well as critical thinking.

      It’s important for news channels and media to invite real scientists as well, instead of just reproducing information! that also brings some more credibility.

      Finally all of us have a duty to stop the spread of fake news – you can ask someone for the source of the data for example – it was nice to hear that some platforms such as WhatsApp have got restrictions on the forwarding of potentially wrong (and harmful) messages.

    • Photo: Kim Liu

      Kim Liu answered on 9 Jul 2020:


      As others have said – this is an incredibly important question which has very far reaching consequences. As Oli has really brilliantly explained: it’s definitely because humans are not great at ‘objectively’ evaluating information. Also, you may have noticed that everyone, regardless of their view, is obsessed with using science to back up their point of view, which is something I find really interesting.

      So – I believe it is essential that we individually try to live by the principles of good science (probably this is the most important learnt skill of anyone who identifies as a scientist!) Look for multiple sources for increased reliability, look to the primary data, consider potential biases, evaluate your own preconceptions regularly to ensure they’re up to date. Then, try and gently encourage this in your friends, family, colleagues etc. by leading by example. Ultimately, it’s up to existing power structures to make more potent worldwide changes, but we need to constantly take responsibility for our own ideas to slowly shift the world’s perception of these changes as well.

    • Photo: Melanie Krause

      Melanie Krause answered on 9 Jul 2020:


      Hi again Ella!
      That is such a difficult question to answer.. as someone who works on viruses I really wish I knew the answer. Every time I see something on my social media timeline that is just blatant false (a very frequent one at the moment is ‘stop using fluoride toothpaste because fluoride is also in glue’ …well water is used to cool nuclear power plants). I tried to have a lengthy conversation with a former school friend who has two young kids that she doesn’t vaccinate because of all the dodgy websites that are run by people with no science education who make money by writing books about ‘alternative medicine’. Every time I disproved a claim on those website she moved on to another one or tried to discredit my sources as being paid by big pharma.
      I think some people just don’t want to act rational because its ‘cool’ to be a non-conformist and scientists are always a bit helpless when people refuse to acknowledge facts as facts.

      I think the best way to stop misinformation is to educate children and young adults from an early age before they become too obsessed with conspiracy theories and still have an open mind. We need to train people to be able to evaluate which sources are actually trustworthy and how to figure out if someone might have ulterior motives to lie. It should be mandatory in school (maybe in politics or english) to dedicate a few hours to evaluation of news sources.
      Then if people are willing to listen to scientists (especially if many of them say the same thing independently of each other), we can come in and explain why vaccines work and why the autism study was false and how climate change happens.. but I think without being able to agree on what the actual facts are, thats not really possible…

    • Photo: Oliver Gordon

      Oliver Gordon answered on 9 Jul 2020: last edited 9 Jul 2020 11:23 am


      The others have given you some really good information about how what we can do for the general public, and what we would like the general public to do. What I’d like to talk about is what we can do for ourselves.

      First off, some members of the general public see scientists as elitist, superior, people who see themselves as better than the public, and therefore think “why should we listen to those scientists?”. For all we can sit and say “that’s the public’s fault”, I honestly don’t think so. While I’m happy my department isn’t like this, over my short career I’ve met many scientists who genuinely think it’s a waste of time to explain the ins and outs of their research to the public because they won’t understand it and won’t do anything useful for the research. (Side note – they also often forget who’s actually paying for all that science!!!). If there’s people in our industry who act like that, why should we expect the public to listen to us and blame them when they don’t?

      Secondly, you’re absolutely right about science communication. The issue here is that many scientists are not good at it, don’t realise, and don’t care. This is our problem to solve, not somebody elses. Many scientists think that because they’re “intelligent”, they are automatically good at communication. They think “how could I do incredibly smart work with other incredibly smart people if I can’t speak? So it must be somebody elses fault if they don’t understand me.” What makes it worse is that many universities don’t include training on basic communication skills. And so you end up with lots of people with scientific training who simply don’t understand that people can’t understand them. Even worse, scientists often don’t know what is reasonable to talk about with the public. For example, I’m sure you care if your taps don’t work, but you don’t particularly care for what’s making them not work. If you explain something at a level that requires a decade of experience to understand, you’ll just confuse people. In Physics where I work, there’s just so many bad communicators, and it’s very disheartening.

      It’s so, so, so important that if we want people to take our opinion seriously, we have to step out of our ivory tower once in a while, and make an effort to talk to them in a simple, effective way that they can understand. That’s for us to do, not for others.

    • Photo: Martin Coath

      Martin Coath answered on 10 Jul 2020:


      I believed, growing up, that science was a single thing. (I hope you know what I mean – I thought that you could draw a boundary and say “inside this line is science, and everything outside isn’t”.) Now I know that the world is way more complicated than that. And this is the real challenge of science communication against ‘fake news’.

      We could start by having scientists recognise that most of science is just opinion, backed by evidence, where the evidence meets certain standards. Then we could contrast that with opinions that are not backed by evidence, or where the evidence doesn’t meet any meaningful standards. Finally we need to have a discussion about whose opinion we take seriously, what evidence they can bring to the discussion, and what standards we are going to expect that evidence to meet.

      This is easily the worst answer I have ever typed for IAS – sorry – but this is my special thing and when I get the chance I tend to drone on a bit 😟

    • Photo: Ashleigh Johnstone

      Ashleigh Johnstone answered on 10 Jul 2020:


      This is such a great question, and I’ve really enjoyed reading the answers from the other scientists! They’ve covered all the points I was going to make, so I’m just going to make one addition.
      I think it’s also really important that scientists take responsibility and own up to it when they realise that mistakes have been made or they realise their original interpretations weren’t quite right. If we can do this, then it can be incredibly valuable. I often think about the situation with the MMR vaccine (google Andrew Wakefield and MMR for more information!) – this is a case when a scientist said one thing, and despite many other people suggesting otherwise, the original article is still spoken about a lot by the public. I wonder what we could’ve done differently to try and prevent or change this. There’s no easy answer, but it’s definitely food for thought!

    • Photo: Nicole Wheeler

      Nicole Wheeler answered on 11 Jul 2020:


      Hey Ella!
      The other scientists have already given some great answers. I had two extra things to add.
      1) I’ve found a good way to improve people’s ability to tell good science from false information is to let the public investigate the data behind a problem themselves. For example, my team works to help address misconceptions the public has about antibiotic resistance, like that people develop resistance to antibiotics (not bacteria), that you can only catch an antibiotic-resistant infection if you misuse antibiotics, and that there’s nothing the public can do to fight the spread of resistance. We’ve found a great way to address these beliefs in a memorable way is to let the public study an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant bacteria themselves. Once they can see a strain of bacteria become resistant then quickly spread through a community or across countries, they have a better intuition for where resistance comes from and how to stop it spreading. Participants in the investigation have also told their friends and families about what they learned.
      2) Another way in which scientists are fighting misinformation is through social media platforms. A lot of misinformation spreads through these platforms, and this can be addressed by developing ways to flag misinformation when its posted, or to stop promoting this information. Youtube’s algorithm learned that directing people to conspiracy videos and extreme content made people spend more time on the site (which is good for profits), so started promoting this content, but people have noticed this and started complaining about it. Re-engineering the algorithm to direct people to trustworthy sources of information or a more balanced set of viewpoints can address this if the website has enough incentive to do this.

    • Photo: Aisling Ryan

      Aisling Ryan answered on 14 Jul 2020:


      Hi Ella!
      I love this question 🙂 Science communication is soooo important! I have become really involved in it this year and I really love being able to explain to people how science works and what is exaggerated or underappreciated. I think sometimes a big problem with the media (and I’m sure this is true for areas outside of science as well) is that the person writing the article isn’t a scientist, or doesn’t have a science background. And I’m sure 90% of the time that person isn’t trying to spread misinformation or fake news, but just has misunderstood or misinterpreted the information. So I think a great way to combat that problem would be for journalists to step back and allow for scientists and scientific writers to write about science, or instead for the journalist to have their article peer reviewed by scientists. Peer review is something every scientist goes through when we try and publish our research. It basically means than when I finish my experiments and write my results out in a paper, the paper I write gets sent to three other scientists that do the same science I do (in the same field). They will read my work and then decide if they agree with it, or if it needs to be improved before it is published and available for everyone else to read it. Although this process can be very difficult if your paper gets rejected many times, the process itself is very important when it comes to ensuring the information we share is accurate and not exaggerated or spreading misinformation.
      In a nutshell, it’s very easy to misinterpret something, especially if it’s not something that you are familiar with. So I don’t think it’s really anyone’s fault per se. I think if we want to fix this problem we just need to change the process and have more scientists involved at the media/writing level 🙂 Which is exactly where science communication comes in and why all of this is so vitally important! I just think it would be great if we could combine the two, rather than trying to fight misinformation with accurate explanations through science communication.

Comments