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Logic-based inoculation - explaining the rhetorical techniques used to mislead - is like a universal vaccine against misinformation. This is the approach used in the upcoming @crankyuncles game (coming Dec 15) http://crankyuncle.com/game 1/10
There are two main ways to inoculate people against misinformation: fact-based & logic-based. Fact-based corrections show how a myth is wrong by explaining facts. Logic-based corrections explain the technique or fallacy used by the myth. 2/10
When @PhilippMSchmid & @CorneliaBetsch tested both methods (calling them topic & technique rebuttals), they found both were effective http://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/4910439/mod_resource/content/1/DENIALISM_REBUTTING%20Divulgação%20Cient%C3%ADfica.pdf 3/10
The 5 techniques they explored - fake experts, false logic, impossible expectation, selectivity, conspiracy theories - mirror the FLICC taxonomy first proposed by @markhoofnagle that I’ve continued to develop at http://sks.to/flicc 4/10
But importantly, they also argued the logic-based approach was especially powerful because it could potentially work across different topics whereas the fact-based approach only worked in specific instances. 5/10
E.g., explaining the facts of how the carbon cycle worked only works in debunking myths about the carbon cycle, but explaining the technique of oversimplification can help debunk myths both about the carbon cycle & other myths using the same technique http://crankyuncle.com/book 6/10
My 2017 research with @stworg & @UlliEcker found that explaining the fake expert strategy used by the tobacco industry inoculated against the same technique used in climate denial http://sks.to/inoculation 7/10
We are now applying logic-based inoculation in the @crankyuncles game, explaining the techniques of science denial & using examples across a range of scientific issues. 8/10 (these examples feature caricatures of @BaerbelW & @thedarthteacher)
While my research has focused on climate misinformation, the goal with the game is to inoculate people against misinformation on vaccination, evolution, COVID-19, health, flat-Earthism, cosmology, etc. 9/10
Plus Star Wars misinformation, of course. Have to protect the public from any fallacies coming from a galaxy far, far away! 10/10
