This month, three professionals discuss why people believe in fake science.
Head of Laboratory Process Improvement
Health Services Laboratories
The internet, social media and 24-7 television has never made instant communication more accessible. With this accessibility there has been an increase in fake science and news. Science traditionally relies on peer review and examination of evidence before publication, to ensure rigour. Science stories can now appear instantly, without checks and balances to prevent bad, or fake, science hitting the headlines.
Often fake science relies on just enough plausibility to gain traction to be accepted as real. The more effective ones look to harness mistrust, conspiracies and tap into preconceived prejudice. The increase in flat earth proponents, anti-vaccine champions and global warming deniers are the most obvious examples that fly in the face of established scientific evidence. A celebrity endorsement counts for more than most scientific papers.
Science needs to challenge fake science with fact, but in a way that non-scientists can understand. Simply challenging the premise using data and evidence can just fuel the fire of the target audience. Often evidence is anecdotal and can be easily challenged, although people can profess to emotive personalised stories to make any argument seem inhumane.
While fake science can seem amusing, the threat to public health of the anti-vaccine lobby is real and diseases are reappearing that should be eradicated by now.
Biomedical scientists are uniquely placed here; to support vaccine uptake and refute the insidious fake news stories on the subject.
Director
International Federation of Biomedical Laboratory Science
For some individuals, it may be because they believe science is “difficult”; that only smart people understand it. Then, when fake science is published and labelled as science, it appears valid because of the preconceived notion that one is not expected to understand it. This premise is supported when reports of fake science use complicated, multi-syllabic words requiring a dictionary to decipher the meaning or statements such as “evaluated in clinical trials”, without evidence described in the report.
For others, believing fake science may be linked to how individuals adopted skills from science courses in their education. Were individuals taught and, more importantly, do they remember the scientific method and how to critically evaluate publications? Critical analysis and questioning are valuable skills that can be applied to more situations than just evaluating whether science is fake or real.
Lastly, it may be wishful thinking or fear of change that leads some to believe fake science. Reading and believing a report that supports what one already believes is a human trait, we want validation for what we already believe. It is easy to understand why individuals who are looking for treatment for cancer or an incurable disease would believe fake science; they are looking for hope, a solution to their problem. Finally, most people do not like change. If fake science supports their views, then their beliefs are not wrong and they don’t have to change.
Pathology Manager
Nuffield Health, Guildford Hospital
From the Piltdown man to the flat Earth theories, there have always been people willing to accept what they read or hear. Is it simply that some people are unable to distinguish between fake and real science or is the reason far more disturbing?
Misinformation arises from traditional media and social networks and we are bombarded daily with stories, some more preposterous than others. But the more we read and accept the impossible, the more likely we are to believe it.
In 1998, a study by Andrew Wakefield published in the BMJ linked vaccination to autism, causing vaccinations to decline and measles cases to increase. When a retraction was published in 2004, this was, for many people, the proof that the original work was correct and vaccinations did indeed cause autism.
Studies have shown that although some retractions follow from scientific misconduct or possible plagiarism, in the minds of some of the general public, the reason for the retraction was far more sinister. In this instance, the obvious answer was that the pharmaceutical companies and big business were conspiring together to increase the sales of their products. People rely on a biased set of cognitive processes to arrive at a given conclusion or belief. They will often twist the facts to fit their existing beliefs, which can tip the scales to make them more likely to accept something as true if it supports what they want to believe.
Image credit | Getty