Disinformation

hey everybody it's Michael schermer it's time for another episode of the Michael Shermer show this brought to you by as always skeptic magazine in the skeptic Society we are a 501c3 non-profit education organization which you can support by going to skeptic.com donate you want to support the magazine the society our media efforts the podcast and so forth that's the place to do it you can get your latest issue of skeptic which I will remind you all is in print available at bookstores everywhere our latest issue on energy matters the next one comes out next month on uh education matters that's our next one so lots of different themes coming up we have health matters after that and we've covered trans matters abortion matters Race Matters nationalism matters and energy matters so there you go all right let's get on with our show today my guess is Lee McIntyre the returning Champion he's been on the show before he's a research fellow at the center for philosophy and History of Science chance at Boston University formerly executive director of The Institute for quantitative social science at Harvard University he's taught philosophy at Colgate University Boston University Simmons University Tufts experimental college and Harvard Extension school he's the author of Dark Ages post-truth the scientific attitude and how to talk to a science denier which we discussed in our previous podcast episode his new book is here here it is on disinformation how to fight for truth and protect democracy it's blissfully short you can just get right through it in an hour or two which is really nice because a lot of books I get for the show are massive tomes that take me a week to get through so I really appreciate it of course I already know your work lead pretty well so this was a lot of fun what inspired this particular one well um as you know I I've been on the topic of belief and truth and justification and defending science for a long time now and I had written several books before that that you just mentioned and I always felt like there was a piece to the story that was missing because I my last book was how to talk to a science denier and so you know I was I was thinking about well you know what do you do when somebody already believes that vaccines don't work or that climate change isn't real and I as you know in that book I talked about how to uh to talk to them how to you know how to try to get them to change their mind and then all of a sudden I realized that I needed to turn the telescope around and think not about the people who were believing but who was creating the information that they were believing how did they come to those beliefs and I the more I thought about it thinking about science denial it occurred to me that it was disinformation that misinformation is an accident but this information is a lie I mean nobody wakes up one day and wonders whether there's a Jewish space laser causing the California wildfires or you know things like that or there are microchips in their vaccines that doesn't just occur to someone they heard that from someone and the person they heard that from is a liar who wants them to believe it and wants them to um you know help them by believing this falsehood and then the more I thought about it I realized you know that's not just true for science denial that's true for other kinds of denial too and it was a short hop over to Trump because as you know from my previous work I maintained that the science denial blueprint is the same blueprint that Trump used for election denial um the you know the the road is the same the the uh the tropes of uh bad reasoning are the same and so is there disinformation behind election denial yes and we even know who and we know why he's doing it and so that's when I wanted to write this book it didn't it didn't take a lot I mean it's just a little bit over a hundred Pages because it's kind of the coda it's when I realized oh yeah there's this other piece that I forgot to say it's the cherry on top and it is a very tiny book intended to just fit in your back pocket and uh you know carry with you you right here uh let's see here it is we've got less than a year to figure this out now that Kevin McCarthy and the Republican faithful have succeeded in retaking the house in the 2022 midterm elections which means that the GOP was effectively rewarded for having embraced Trump's big lie in 2021 they're perfectly positioned to install Trump or whomever they like as president no matter the vote counted 2024. after that some wonder how close will be to Orwell's nightmare of two plus two equals five in the basement of the ministry of love that's pretty dramatically I I don't know if I share that kind of Doomsday is um um you know we did we have President Biden now the the transfer of power was done more or less peacefully except for January 6th but um and and you know nothing bad is particularly has happened since then uh the country has continued on as usual um so let's carry out of the thought experiment let's say Trump does win he he gets the nomination uh he overcomes DeSantis and Chris Christie and all the rest like he did in 2015 over his Republican Rivals which look like it's happening and he's face to face with Biden he could win and and what was in 2020 what he had 74 million votes he could get even more than that he could get 80 million or whatever possible um what in your view is the road from there to the end of our Republic um so I have some speculation uh it's based on some work that you know other folks have done but part of it I mean just the the opening Salvo here is to listen to what Trump himself has said um he's planning to um got the Civil Civil Service you know replace the people in the Civil Service with loyalists um to make the justice department you know more or less his uh personal arm to to go after his enemies I mean he said you know I am your Vengeance uh I I don't think it's tough to figure out that he's modeling himself on Victor Orban even Vladimir Putin in terms of what he wants to do so the the only so the question is not would Trump like to subvert democracy would he like to Institute democracy it's could we stop him and I think the time to stop him is now before the election because in your thought experiment once he's already won I'm not sure how to stop him after that I mean in in some ways I mean I think back to the Russian Revolution I mean the 1905 was a warm-up for 1917 you know they they learned what to do Trump Trump knows what he wants to do and I think would have an easier time instituting it and uh I I just I shudder to think how we could if we could survive the Democracy could survive pushing back at that point um and and let me just throw in one issue here that's I think relevant um you had said you know our we've survived in the 2020 election Biden was elected things were okay um and yes but one thing that's happening this time is that the um the disinformation is uh even more prevalent now than it was in 2020 I mean Trump has somehow gotten people to believe that you know the Russians are no longer interested or that they were never interested but they never did anything that means part of his big lie but in fact the disinformation campaign surrounding the 2024 election has already started Trump doesn't need to convince his uh more people to vote for him than voted for him last time what he needs is to convince the Biden people to stay home and with third-party candidates with some well-timed disinformation you know a few more newscasters both sidesing issues or you know spending their entire newscast talking about how old Biden is we just might get there I mean some of that is a result of this information some of it is foreign disinformation some is domestic but you know we saw what disinformation did in 2016. um I'm the the social media companies were a little bit more attuned to the problem in 2020 I'm not sure what's going to happen in 2024 I I don't want to gamble um so there's unlikely to be anybody in the Republican primaries who would break off and run as an independent and draw votes away from Trump but that could happen to Biden if RFK Jr decides he's going to be an independent what do you make of his candidacy and why he's popular amongst Democrats and liberals and even some centrists in right of Center um I think a lot of people are look there a lot of people are always looking for you know a way out uh you know what do we really want to rerun of of 2020 and so they're you know flirting with this idea plus he's a Kennedy so he's got you know instant name recognition I think that a lot of people don't understand just how much of a conspiracy theorist he is just how much I mean we all know about the the anti-vax conspiracies but there's a lot more going on with him and I just heard a podcast the other day um started out as a radio show Magna chakrabarti on on point talking about um not about Kennedy but about the um what's the the other one called uh no labels there's another uh third party threat which is perhaps even more worrisome than uh than Kennedy because I'm not sure she never really got into the issue of what the money was behind it you know who who was actually behind it I'm I'm not convinced that it's a good Faith organization that really believes what they say they believe I'm prepared to think that there's some GOP money behind it um that you know they understand that they'll be taking votes away from Biden they've said some illogical things along the way that make me think you know they said oh you know well if it looks like um you know we're going to be a spoiler we'll bow out but then they say other things that contradict that so the third party thing has got my attention but I have to say what's really got my attention to even more the umbrella that's got my attention is the prospect of disinformation because we really have not learned how to fight that yet um and I think that one one reason for that is that we don't know that we're in a disinformation war when you hear the cable news talking about it I don't just mean Fox I mean kind of all of them they talk about misinformation they make it sound like it's all a mistake it's all an accident they report on it like it was a hurricane you know just hunker down there's nothing we can do about it there's one commentator on MSNBC at 4 pm Nicole Wallace does a great job always identifies disinformation as disinformation I think we need to prepare in that way that we're in a disinformation war and um that's what's going to help us before the next election yeah I've been following RFK rfkj as Megyn Kelly calls him uh fairly closely I watched the whole three hours of him on Rogan wow and you know he yeah there's just a ton of you know he's he's following in the Steve Bannon mode if you just flood the system with just flooded with or whatever his quote was right he flooded with or the zone and no one knows quite what to think so but part of the problem is some of the stuff he says is true when he talks about say the regulatory capture by big tobacco companies and big Pharma I just watched the Netflix series on painkillers about the Sackler family and Purdue pharmaceutical I mean the system is totally rigged for people that have money and power they just buy these politicians they bought off the regular Regulators at the FDA to get Oxycontin approved even though they knew it was addictive they knew it would kill people they didn't care and where was the government you know so when he when he goes off about stuff like that he's right you know so people listen to that yeah yeah and then three steps later you know the CIA killed my father and my uncle and you know big farmers doing this and vaccines are doing that then you know we're a wash and toxic chemicals and frogs are becoming gay and three hours later you're down the rabbit hole right so I guess part of the problem with your I mean this is what your book is about is you know how do you know what he said which parts of what he says are true and not true it's you you raise a really good point there because and I mean people have to recognize that is a disinformation tactic disinformation disinformers don't just always make up something they make up something that capitalizes on an existing fissure or an existing truth right they'll pick out something you know one little kernel of Truth so that it makes what the other things that they're saying more credible so it does make it difficult because um this is uh sometimes in the Russian system called the fire hose of falsehood you know they'll say just a million false things and then what are you supposed to do go through and debunk every one of them but you know then if even one of them's true it makes it sound like oh well maybe the other ones are credible that's just how trust works that's how people process information they they are I mean we're on the whole I think trusting beings you know we've evolved in a I mean look at the societies we live in we live in these you know enormous cities where we're not killing each other left and right on the street we really do trust each other and cooperate fairly well if you compare to uh how it might be and so we're when somebody's lying to our face it's very hard to imagine that they're lying and you know what sometimes they believe it they believe they're a lie right there's there's self-deluded and that makes it especially hard because they're even better Liars so how do you fight back against something like that I think the answer is to um be careful who you trust you know be be aware of other things that somebody has said um the you know the uh my to think about critical thinking to think about you know being skeptical of what might the agenda be that the person has I mean you you listen to the whole three-hour podcast I mean how long into that do you have to listen before you figure out this guy's a conspiracy theorist there's he's there's something really wrong with him yeah it didn't take long but you know this part of my job so that's why I did it you're actually I also listen to him on um you know he was on with Barry Weiss he was on with I think Jordan Peterson in fact this the 2024 campaign may be the campaign of podcasts rather than cable uh news like 2016 and 2020 where um because they have such massive platforms and you can talk for as long as you like there's no hard out there's no commercial almost no commercials last month I was at Freedom Fest which is kind of a conservative mostly libertarian leaning conference Mark skousen is the uh the director of the owner of it and he's a good friend um and uh to my utter astonishment RFK Jr shows up and they're doing a fundraising campaign there at this was the conference was in Memphis so the fundraiser was at it wasn't even a fundraiser it was just a dinner somebody paid for none of us paid to go it was at Elvis's car museum which was pretty cool anyway I got it these were not liberals these are not Democrats these are mostly libertarian maybe disaffected conservatives that whatever uh never trumpers and so on and they seem to like him a lot because why not because I think not because of the conspiracy theories and effects or stuff I think it's never trust big organizations I don't trust big corporations I don't trust big government I don't trust intelligence agencies they're all corrupt that appeals to a lot of people I think whether the specifics are true or not you know whether you know Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone this is secondary right this is he's after he's touching something deeper don't trust big organizations well he yes and trust him you know yeah he he's he he wants you to uh to trust him um it's it's hard because when there's somebody especially with a recognizable name in an instant platform like he has um sometimes people's reaction is well no why would he be lying about that or they might feel think well he kind of feels like I feel you know I I'm he's tapped into something that I already believe maybe and you know oh so then I'm more receptive to you know whatever alleged facts he's sharing about the other organizations and that can be uh that can be hard I mean part you know you know is because you're an expert on this that belief is not just a matter of rationality it's a matter of feeling it's a matter of community of identity all these other things that go on and so if you get somebody who's a skilled orator they can really uh change people's mind uh when they shouldn't you know when the people should be a little more skeptical I mean you run your the magazine skeptic so you you know exactly what I'm talking about it's just it's hard to it's hard to have a blanket solution um and I guess my advice to people is simply that if we wake up to the fact that we're in an information War then it makes you more wary then it makes you wonder is that true or is it propaganda or to ask why is the does the person want me to believe that not just is what they're saying true but why do they want me to believe it's true now that in it is of itself can sound like it's like I've got a conspiracy theory there except in some cases there is uh there's evidence um you know when of you know who's who's behind them who's paying the bills and uh so you know read good journalistic sources and and dig to the bottom and listen to good podcasts by the way um the danger the danger of course yeah I mean you put your finger right on the right thing with cable news or with podcasts that's the danger um it's the amplification of disinformation the disinformer just saying something doesn't count for much but once that voice is Amplified and given credibility then it can be quite dangerous yeah by the way on Rogan's podcast they got to talking about climate change and after spending an hour uh running down the scientific experts and don't trust the CDC and don't trust big government agencies and scientists and experts and so on he then pivots and goes oh climate change is totally real totally a human-caused trust the signs the consensus is in the jury is in and we're going to go after the the big fossil fuel companies and bring them to court and sue them and it's like what he just said don't trust authorities in science there is no scientific consensus so you know everybody including RFK Jr picks his battles I guess now they're they're uh they're cafeteria Skeptics I always say people go that's a good way to put it they they choose they go through the buffet line and they choose the thing that they want to believe and they're very skeptical of the thing they don't want to believe but they're very gullible of the thing they do want to believe that's uh it's a real problem that's one thing that bothers me about RFK Jr and then I'll get off that topic but also that you know he always says you know I don't want to be wrong just you know just show me where I'm wrong and I'll change my mind but he never does and people constantly show him where he's wrong in Apollo off it's been posting stuff regularly on you know here's what he said on Rogan's podcast or whatever and here's the story he told he cited this study here's the study here's what it actually says you're wrong RFK Jr will you publicly State I am wrong and he never does he doesn't even respond that's what the flat earthers do I mean I I wrote that earlier book the scientific attitude making the argument that what's really distinctive about science is that scientists care about evidence and they're willing to change their mind on the basis of new evidence the problem with science deniers really the problem with any denier is not just they believe the wrong thing but that when it's pointed out to them that there's evidence against what they believe they won't change their mind you know they they won't and they and they won't even say in advance what would change their mind you know that that old Carl popper question what evidence if I had it in my back pocket could convince you to change your mind they don't even want to say in advance what that is just in case you've got it in your back pocket that's that's what it really takes I think to be a scientific Reasoner to to really be you know good at this is to be skeptical but also flexible enough to say you know what that evidence is good I can't maybe I don't have proof or certainty you know because you can't have that empirical reasoning but what I do have is warrant I know that there's more evidence for this hypothesis than the alternative so guess which one it's more rational to believe I mean there's no world in which it's more rational to believe the less credible hypothesis so why why do they do that you know that because and uh and you hear this from uh RFK Jr all the time he wants proof he wants certainty prove to me that this didn't happen you know that's that's just that's the wrong standard yeah now if you saw the Tweet yesterday from URI Geller uh posting a picture of alien bodies in a warehouse and he said I I can't tell you all where this came from but um until I get permission from the authorities to share with you what I know about this photo and then viewers pointed out that's an image from an X-Files episode and here's the episode and you can see Scully and Mulder in the warehouse with the same alien bodies you know so of course everybody points this out to him within an hour and he doesn't respond he doesn't like oh my God I was taken in and I got fooled I'm so sorry nothing because it'll go away that's true yes right within a day or two no one will even remember that it happened uh okay back to the oh uh no one other thing on the truth default Theory so I'm a little conflicted about this I'm not sure what I think about this I've talked to Hugo Mercier on this podcast where he says you know people actually do not default to truth they're not suckers they don't just believe everything they they say in fact it's hard for advertisers to get people to buy their products it's hard for candidates to get people to switch their vote to their campaign because people are naturally skeptical but then I have like I just had Christopher Simon's on uh but with his book what is it nobody's fool I think it is but no it's a different title any case he's the you know the the gorilla uh the the Gorilla video guy along with uh uh yeah it was Christopher yeah no sorry Daniel Christopher shabri I had on the show Daniel Simons is his co-author of the book any case they feel that people uh do like you just said default the truth they tend because who has time to fact check everything we have to trust people so I'm not sure what to think about that you know are we suckers indelible by Nature are we naturally skeptical and it's hard to get people to fall for Cults and schemes and scams and frauds you know part of the problem is we don't know how many times the fraudster tried this particular X fraud before they were successful we don't know about the failures the Survivor bias right we hear about the people that join Jonestown or Scientology or any of these you know the the uh Waco group and so on but how many people left you know the first day or how many people take the Scientology personality test and go this is and they they just walk away or the Nexium cult how many women took those self-help empowerment seminars about how to be successful in business and they never had sex with Keith Renee they never had Brands they never gave them money they just walked away and this is part of the problem we don't know uh because no one keeps track of that data it and I mean the the work that uh Mercier and spur Bearer are doing on rationality both the book and the uh the article so what I think you're talking about um it is very fascinating work I mean and it it really plugs a hole in just your intuition about how could we have evolved as a species to be that gullible I mean we must have some ability we must we must have some skeptical ability to you know just naturally to be able to fight back against something like this but I I don't what the thing I've never understood about their work is and and maybe you can help me to understand this to the extent that I that I can um how do you account for all of those times when there are mass delusions where you know when people get suckered you know all the people that believe in Flat Earth or against Evolution or that the vaccines are fake you know all of these the followers of Yuri Geller all of these problems I mean we uh you know my I'm you know I'm I'm friends with Andy Norman and he's got this book mental immunity and I think he's got a very interesting point in that book which is that we have a mental immune system we you know we have an ability to fight off bad ideas and it and it works pretty well but in an infidemic in it in an environment that's really the the weaponization of information not just sitting around the campfire trying to figure out who's a liar but you know it where we've got social media and you know these uh you know skill Liars coming at us you know over cable news our immune our mental immune system isn't equipped to handle that and so one thing Andy argues for in his book is we need to beef up our own immune system we can do it I mean yes we have a mental immune system but that doesn't mean there's not something that we can do to help you know to help it kind of on analogy with your biological immune system you know you want to keep yourself healthy so your immune system works well so I mean there are things we can do to make ourselves more skeptical I I don't here I guess here's here's my problem with the mercy and spare bear hypothesis it almost sounds like they're saying don't worry it's no big deal post-truth is not not real um we're you know everything is really fine it's all you know things turn out best in the end and you know we'll get through this will there will be some bumps in the road but we'll be all right except that sometimes we're not I mean sometimes there are horrible things that happen as a result of mass delusion or even just one person in power who's deluded who has enough power to affect everyone else I'm thinking here of mbeke in South Africa who said you know oh AZT is a western plot um you can you can cure HIV AIDS he wasn't even sure that HIV caused AIDS you know you can cure this through lemon juice garlic and beetroot well 300 000 people died in South Africa as a result of that that was because one guy in Power was a science denier so it really is I think more dangerous than they say that the the claim that I'm making in my own work because I've got a whole book on on post-truth is not that post-ruth that truth doesn't matter or that you know we're past that it's that truth is under assault and I think that you know even if mercy and spare bear are right that you know we we do have the ability to be skeptical um that's like sending somebody who's you know got a uh shotgun in their closet out to war uh it's a very different thing when you're in war it's an information War which is what I think we're in now is a very different kind of a thing yeah a couple thoughts on that I I think uh there's elements of Truth to to all these different theories about rationality and Truth default it's very context dependent it's also socially and politically context dependent you know Hitler being the the type specimen there and and Mercier talks about this in his book not born yesterday you know how did this happen and part of the reason is it's slow enough that by the time he went to the real dark side passing all the anti-jewish legislation and so on it was too late for dissenters to do anything the Free Press was there was no Free Press they took over the press and they set up those concentration camps those people know about the big camps but there was thousands but these little camps where they would just send off anyone who was dissenting exactly like Putin does Putin's a little more blatant about just killing them but but locking them up so if if you're if you see your neighbors being hauled off and you don't see them again you're just going to keep your mouth shut so you can't that by then it's too late and same thing with Putin why doesn't somebody in his own Administration or whatever in Russia stop it they can't you know it's that that's the belly and the cat problem uh you know the mice all think well we should put a little bell on the cat so we can hear him coming all right who's gonna Bell the Cat well not me you go you go on because whoever does it it's gonna probably get eaten right so you know no one wants to do it you know except navalny who you talked about um who's still is he still alive I think he's still in prison he is he's still in prison and yeah and uh yeah but you know the average person could look at that go look you know I got a family I'm just trying to just live my life I don't want to do that I could hardly blame him you know and so I I think that's what carries it out and so again back to where we began my sense maybe I'm naive but that even if Trump won and got another four years it's unlikely he could like end the media press you know shut down the New York Times through legal measures or whatever this just is not going to happen here I don't see how it could happen here and even if he said I don't want to leave after four years you've served her two terms that's what the Constitution says you have to leave well I'm not going to leave and instead I'm going to do x what what could he do I mean the Supreme Court's already stood up to him many times all those courts stood up to him on the um the uh the election um lawsuits he brought the 2020 election lawsuits he brought and he failed in all of them so the courts they do stand up to I just don't see the pathway where this could end the Republic that's what I'm saying let me let me try to convince you because he who started who has stood up to him so far in a way that stopped him I mean you talk about the Belling the cat problem in a second term in a second Trump Administration who's going to Bell that cat who's going to stand up to him who's you know who's really going to be able to do it you're you're presuming that there's going to be enough effective resistance out there such that you know after everything that he's done and he still wins that there would be enough resistance left to stop him well my head stood up to him yeah he he did he did I mean there are always I mean we and looking back in that history I feel somewhat lucky I mean if the couple of cops had been standing at a different hallway if Mike Pence had been just a tiny bit different than he was you know would it have turned out uh quite differently so you know I'm part of this is because I'm a belt and suspenders guy I don't want to leave it to um it's probably going to work out um I think that Trump has done enough damage um and I I also take the work of um Tim Snyder very seriously and on tyranny and things at least on sense where you know he makes the argument that we've seen this before I mean during the 2016 election um he was over in Eastern Europe you know watching what was happening in Hungary watching what was happening in turkey and thinking oh my God this is happening back home too so it's not as if um there's no pathway that you know it's not as if we haven't seen this happen that is somebody who starts out like Trump eventually does and effectively end democracy is Hungary actually a democracy anymore is turkey I mean they just had an election but there's this gray area I think people call it different things I've heard it called electoral dictatorship there's a nicer word for it than that where you've got a society that still has Representatives they still have elections these the people still have they still have a press but the game is so rigged that you know who's going to win the election you know who's gonna go to prison that that to me I mean we're getting dangerously close to that line there was there was a piece by Evan osnos in I think it was in the New Yorker where he talked about um because he was talking about China at the time and uh I wish I could remember the name of the piece but it was a brilliant piece and a very Vivid where he talks about you know look the thing is it's just like walking into a room and your eyes begin to adjust and you don't realize how dark it's getting because your eyes are adjusting the whole time and that's what I'm afraid is happening it's not that Trump could end democracy overnight it's that it the Twilight keeps getting darker and darker and I don't know what what point we get to the point where nobody can stop him anymore where we kind of pass that point like we did with the North Korea and the bomb Oh we can stop them we can stop them yeah we're not going to let them get there and then one day ah they're a nuclear power yeah yeah well there's only that's a slightly different scenario deal it is a foreign I'm encouraged by attorney general Bill bars standing up to Trump I mean he was a lifelong Republican Trump appointee voted for Trump and so forth and you know he's we looked into the whole election fraud um the reason there was no evidence for it all those courts again as I said and Trump even tried to take it to the Supreme Court and his own three appointees that he made yes uh including Amy Coney Barrett said no we're not we're not taking this because there's nothing to it so you know to me that's encouraging I I just don't see how he could I hope you're right getting past that I hope I hope you're right um it it feels a little risky to me uh that that is let me put it this way the things that I'm advocating in my book that the ordinary citizen can do to fight back against disinformation don't hurt I mean if it's unnecessary it's it's kind of like you know taking your vitamin C even if you weren't going to get a cold anyway it's all right it's still you know it can't hurt so you know the things that I'm arguing for about people you know being awake to the idea that there's foreign disinformation coming in or you know around some of these issues um you know being more aware of uh what their representatives in Congress are uh responding to you know uh issues about um regulation of social media and about censorship and writing disinformation they their people should have a voice on this the ordinary citizen should have a voice and not just let the big tech companies have a voice on this I think yeah it's a curious thing I I've just been amazed that Trump has still has so much support I guess he called it in 2015 when he said I could shoot somebody on Broadway and it wouldn't affect my ratings he's right and the fourth conviction we had yesterday number four in George Georgia I mean this again his fundraising goes up his numbers go up and I've just been astonished by how the Republican party this you know conservatives We're the Party of principle and Law and Order and values and morals and you know maybe it's back to where we were talking about truth default or whatever you know maybe they just can't do anything about it you know it's like why did they let Trump get the nomination back in 2016 and so well they can't there is no they they just nobody could stop it it's just how it works in our system there's no top-down decisions like that although you know back in when when Bernie was pushing Hillary it did look like the the Democratic party was nudging him out essentially saying we think Hillary is our candidate and we're going to rig in a way rig it against Bernie that did seem a little top down the you know that the other way I was reading a study last night about motivated reasoning and you know just because I was thinking about the response from Ted Cruz and you know all these other people who were defending Trump who will privately say they know he did something wrong but they're publicly defending him and you know why would they do that and this study was by David redlock who's a political scientist and he published this study in 2010. and he did an experiment with where he ran a fake uh primary political campaign with you know three candidates totally made up made up biographies etc etc and he had the experimental subjects um you know in the convention hall and the you know kind of artificial timeline uh you know who do you like who are you going to support etc etc and then he would control the information flow and at a certain point he would put in negative information say about one of the candidates and then measure how that altered support he found something very interesting a little bit of negative information increased support these were amongst partisans right they had already committed and he let a little bit of time pass you know say they were they were already a little bit into the campaign but then and this is the part that gives me hope what he found is that as the the negative information continued eventually the support all vanished so it's kind of like a glacier melting you can't see it it's not happening they you know they say it's melting it's really not and then all of a sudden it happens and it's and it happens completely so the the point of the article was you know do partisans ever reach a Tipping Point and they do even partisans will reach a tipping point where if the information is uh bad information and it's presented to them you know right between the eyes over and over and over again they will eventually listen to it especially in an interactive environment like that where they're judging their beliefs relative to what their friends believe and you know you're starting to see some of that support erode for Trump amongst the people who are running against him of Martha Pence Chris Christie Etc but I think the glacier is starting to melt on the inside and that that might happen with Trump's supporters too I kind of felt that yesterday which is why I read the red lost study because it just seemed like it fit it just seemed like it fit so well with what's happening you know why is his support going up well that's what you would predict based on red lost's model but then as the bad information continues to flow it will just you know the ice will fall off into the ocean and the glacier will be no more now maybe that's motivated reasoning on my part I'm wishing that that happens I'm hoping that happens yeah but you know reading the red lost study really helped me to understand there's a way to measure this this is not just something that we've never seen before empirical social scientists uh have been looking at this these kind of problems and modeled it yeah Barry Weiss had Chris Christie on her podcast and you know he was ranting about you know what a despicable human being Trump is and then she plays for him his endorsements of trump in 2016. that's really funny that's me and he's like but to his credit to his credit he goes well I was wrong I bought into the whole and I was wrong like okay all right that's fair enough we could all be wrong that gives other people permission to say they were wrong too doesn't it yeah yeah I think so yeah but he has you know next to no chance at this point in any case no none of them seem to but that could all change you know we're still a ways out but Biden was at three percent at one point back in the primary in the that's old days I mean I'd you know I I wouldn't count Chris Christie out if anybody can take down Trump I think it's another you know loud or big guy who knows how to you know uh push push people around Trump I know Trump must be concerned about Chris Christie because he was making fun of his eating habits and his weight oh my goodness like he can't push that back against him right right yeah that's too funny but again back to you talk about identity in your book as being so important particularly to voters you know it's like when the tapes came out of Tucker Carlson and what he really thought about Trump uh which was the exact opposite of what he was saying on Fox news and it didn't seem no one seems to care it's like what you mean he was lying to us yeah he was lying to you well okay I don't care like what again this I mean in in Russia there are people even when they had an independent media but before the attack on Ukraine there was some Independent Media in Russia a shot and I wish I remember the exact statistic but a shocking percentage of people watch State TV by choice it's propaganda but they watch it by choice because it tells them what they want to hear so there's that moment when maybe they I mean what's what is that dividing line when you know it's a lie but it's what you want to believe so you continue to watch it um I I read a book One Time by uh Robert trivers the the great evolutionary biologist called the Folly of fools yeah he made such a compelling case in that book that about self-delusion and that I mean talk about you know Evolution going back to the mercy and spare bear idea maybe that's it maybe we evolved to believe our own because it makes us a more effective liar right that that's the real danger I mean that's the real insight into human nature the ability to um want to believe something so much that you convince yourself and then you go out and you convince other people you so you know that book that that's interesting yeah I do think that most probably cult leaders probably come to believe the they're saying maybe they don't start off like that like psychics who they're just having fun goofing around reading doing astrological readings or palm readings well whatever and then they get enough feedback from their clients their marks like wow that was so right I can't believe you got that and then they start thinking maybe I really am good at this then they get better at it because they really believe it and then you get a positive feedback loop and pretty soon the cult leader comes to believe he really is God or whoever I think that does happen I mean what what did uh Larry speaks uh Reagan's old uh spokesman say if you tell the same story three times it's true right I mean it just doesn't take that much feedback to get somebody to think yeah that's you know probably right look at uh Karl Rove you know Karl Rove the the spin meister and yet on the the night when um which election was it now I guess it was the uh Obama election he just you know he he on air had a meltdown because he couldn't believe that Fox News was you know was calling the election for Obama and it was just um I guess this was uh I guess it was 2012. I guess Eric was won against uh not against McKesson was the one against uh well I don't remember the Tails but um he had you know Rove was drinking the Kool-Aid I mean he had convinced himself that this was possible even when he should have known that it wasn't right yeah well okay so um we've been pounding on Republicans so and conservatives for lying but so let me make a few comments about liberal lies that bother me like GMOs are bad for health bad for the environment so not true you know nuclear power is you know we're going to end up with another Chernobyl and and Three Mile Island so not true you know and climate change although it's real and human cause is going to lead to the extinction of the human species not true uh and so on these are the things that and I'm just kind of giving you some insight uh on what another motive of conservatives or Trump supporters or whatever they hear enough of this and they go you know I can see with my own two eyes that men cannot be women women don't have penises this is just these people are lying and therefore I'm going to go with Trump or whoever even though I know he's full of but it's it's not as bad as the the libtards are feeding us something like that just follow up Chris Ruffo you know that um you know the whole anti-racism critical race Theory all that stuff that he's pushing back against um you know but in in a lot of those the things that are being told by the critical race Theory people are lies they're not true that for example that police killings of blacks are in the thousands or tens of that it's not true you know it's less than a hundred a year and so on they they're lying and this is one of the animated motivations I think of people on the right they hear enough of that and they go that is just wrong um I'm a Science Guy um I uh some of the things that you're that you're talking about are instances in which people have political or normative beliefs and they're looking for a way for you know science to validate the you know political views that they have you know I did a whole chapter on GMOs as you know in my in my book uh how to talk to a science denier and so I mean it is attractive and it happens on both the left and the right the best example that I can think of was um vaccines before uh covet I mean you had people on the left and on the right who were anti-vaxxers you know who were believing that um uh the MMR vaccine could cause autism some of them because you know the the people on the left because they didn't like big corporations so people are I'm sorry because they didn't like big uh um Pharma and on the right because they didn't like big corporations I got that backwards but you see my point so the problem is kind of arguing over which side science is is on um and there's a problem here which is that if it's the way that you describe it then what people are really doing do you think it's that they're looking at the science and they want to defend you know what the science says and so they you know so they're rejecting the other the normative statements that people are making or is it that they already know what the political their political views are and so they're cherry picking something out because I mean you'd have to find consistency wouldn't you right you'd have to find somebody who was not say a climate denier you know on the other end of the equation because you know they they couldn't use the same type of reasoning to defend their you know their idea that climate denial was okay when they were rejecting you know that point about GMOs so you know I'm when I say I'm a science guy what I mean here is that um you know I don't think that some of the things that you mentioned are things where there is a scientific consensus I don't think that you know we've got a perfect answer on it and to the extent that people are arguing on the left or the right yes absolutely science has you know settled this issue and we're done with it then I I think that's a I think that's a mistake um we can get more into the you know the Weeds on some of the specific issues that you're talking about I'm trying to kind of do a view from 30 000 feet here on the fact that you know you mentioned what about five different things where it seems to me that they're they're all kind of of a piece there were people want something to be true so much that they're willing to say that science backs them up 100 and if there's no argument on the other side now I have to be careful there because on the other side somebody could say well but isn't that exactly what you're saying about climate change right so you know why why aren't you allowing the you know the folks who are um a genuine scientists who are uh you know uh gadflies you know who are questioning the consensus on climate change to have their voice it matters uh what the weight of the scientific evidence is so we can get into the the Weeds on any one of those that that you want but that's just kind of my view from from 30 000 feet yeah I think that's I think that's probably right you know and people get confused between facts and values they put you know moral element over the whole thing and think well the science has to come out a certain way it because if it doesn't then the people of color minorities will be badly treated you know like the race and IQ issue that's been around forever um you know group differences in in IQ racial group differences in IQ this is a you know a taboo subject for obvious reasons and uh but the sense is if it if the science has to come out a certain way or else it's going to justify discrimination against people of God well the science is going to be whatever it is and we can't you can't change that and don't confuse the two I mean people should not discriminate against people's color or trans or anybody for any reason and we already have these constitutional protections that protect people's rights trans rights are human rights absolutely you shouldn't be fired for being trans or whatever but that's a separate question from are there group differences in IQ scores or get you know can a woman actually become a man and vice versa you know these are scientific questions that we to me we have to leave open but most people uh it's it's uh it's too hard to keep those separate you know they wanna they wanna kind of overlap them and then they get confused and they want the science to come out a certain way and I think that's the problem I wanted to ask you about I was just finishing reading I'll give you another book I just finished this week yes Sander van der Linden really interesting oh you do I do I don't know him but uh yeah I like the I like the book a lot um so there you know he's talking about uh what's the subtitle here why misinformation affects infects our minds and how to build immunity yeah so along that kind of viral analog which I like a lot but there you know there's some discussions about to what extent fake news alternative facts social media actually did change say the 2016 election and he's citing site that studies on this and you can give me your opinion on those as well that it really didn't have that much of effect that most voters are just voting their party doesn't matter who the candidate is and maybe this explains Trump as well right I can't vote for Hillary so yeah I don't like Trump but you know I can't vote for Hillary so yeah and maybe most voters just follow the party line it doesn't really matter and therefore it doesn't matter how much fake news is poured out on Facebook you know most people are not going to change their votes anyway um what's the latest research on that and what what are your thoughts on on that problem um Sanders written a a brilliant book I'm I'm a little uh I mean full disclosure I'm I'm a friend of his um but I mean I think that the point that he's making is that um there is a way to fight back against misinformation that some people have been overlooking which is that we can pre-bunk not just debunk we don't just have to wait until somebody has already um heard the misinformation and then try to disabuse them of the false thing that they believe we can try to inoculate them uh in advance you know by preparing them uh you know for the fact that maybe they're going to hear a conspiracy theory or you know that the that the person who's trying to convince them you know has written something else that's uh that's not credible right so um I I think that that's the I think that that's the uh you know the the point of the book that there is kind of almost he argues that they're this uh kind of the the DNA of misinformation and once you can identify it then you can then you can fight back against it now I haven't exactly answered your question because I forget the precisely what the what the question was but well to what extent is social media really a problem for our political system right yeah um last now this these data are a little bit old but I remember Mark Zuckerberg saying at one point that it was crazy to think that any of the Russian propaganda on Facebook could have had an effect on the election you know kind of Define people to show that it had any sort of an effect and yet later admitted that 126 million people saw those posts so and how do you measure how much of an effect you know that that would have had I mean it's it's difficult to know it's difficult to know precisely how to measure that but one worries just over the you know the the volume of the onslaught there you know 100 if 126 million people see something it's going to affect a certain fraction of them is that fraction enough to throw an election I I don't know but I do think we have to take social media seriously I do think just like we have to take partisan media seriously because you know the folks who are saying that well you know this isn't really a problem there isn't really that much that we need to worry about are I think that they're putting the burden of proof in the wrong place I think they've got this idea that um you know unless you can show that you know some particular disinformation message is going to have some deleterious effect uh you've got to let it out there in the information sphere that you know this is just what it means to live in a free Society this is what's bothered me so much about the uh the the claim I think the bogus claim that any fight against disinformation is just censorship um because it's it it you know the social media companies are not I mean they're amplifying the message that that's the problem right it's whether they've come it's not whether they've come up with a message it's that they're amplifying the message and section 230 either Communications decency act protects them uh you know in two different ways people forget that there are two parts of it right it it protects them from if something slips through you know some terrible thing and you know they can't get sued because they miss something but it also protects them if they want to take something down that they find offensive so they could do more to fight against disinformation it's just not in their wheelhouse I mean it's it's not in their interest to do it so that's why they don't do more of it so I mean it's it's hard to I you know the argument that we just need to let everybody have a voice and truth will rise to the top I don't I don't think that I don't I don't think that works I like that idea but I agree it probably doesn't work but you say these companies aren't doing much doesn't didn't you say uh Zuckerberg Facebook has a team of 40 000 people yes that are I mean not enough that's massive well not enough people imagine the payroll for that let me let me give you a thought experiment I know you've seen because I've written about this before but let me just uh do this out in in public ask this question when I give a paper in a big crowd how many of you have ever seen porn on Facebook and nobody's hand ever goes up now it's because Facebook scrubs for that they scrub for porn they scrub for beheadings they scrub for terrorism you don't see that on Facebook because they know that if that leaked out it would be the end of their business so they're there I mean however many people it's got to be the worst job at Facebook but they don't just rely on their algorithms they have a human team scrubbing that stuff out so they can't tell me that disinformation about the vaccines or disinformation about the 2020 election was too overwhelming for them they didn't want to do it they didn't want to do more than that is this a I mean porn it's pretty easy to identify relatively speaking I guess on pictures versus I don't know uh Robert Malone says that vaccines cause myocarditis or maybe I mean that's how would you know if that's the right thing or not or He suggests it's possible they'd have to fact check every claim before they yeah they pull yeah well I mean let me turn the telescope around uh look at because I'll talk about an instance in which they did know and did nothing in 2019 the center for countering digital hate um found that 65 percent of the anti-vaxx propaganda on Twitter was due to 12 people one of whom was RFK Jr the night before Elon Musk took over Twitter I was on vacation and but I said give me give me the computer give me the computer I got to go to check this because it's going to change as of tomorrow I want to know before he's even got his hands on it how many of those people are still on Twitter eight of them were still on Twitter so you know that's three years they had three years to de-platform the disinformation Dozen and they didn't this was before Elon Musk so I mean I think that there are I think a credible case can be made that the social media companies could do more if they had the incentive to do more but they don't so they don't and is that a failure of the regulatory State again regulatory capture I mean you can't blame Zuckerberg it's literally his job to make as much money and get the Facebook Stock to go up which means that more eyeballs on the website so they could sell more ads and so on and so forth that's how capitalism works that's his job um I'm not in favor of Congress being this super uh fact-checking board I I don't I don't think that's going to work I think that I mean you they keep having hearings and they keep doing nothing um and I'm I'm not sure that the if I could have him do something I'm not sure the thing I'd want them to do is you know to be the Super fact Checker you know right up in Twitter and Facebook's business what I would like to see is a proposal that uh cognitive scientist Stephen Lewandowski made which is that there's more transparency around their algorithms that you could find a way to Shield user data you could find a way so that you know you could protect people's privacy but have say a review board of cognitive scientists data scientists other experts who could look at the algorithms which are right now black boxes to anybody outside the companies and to see whether they were likely to cause harm I mean right now we find out they cause harm only after it's done when a whistleblower comes forward but these can be dangerous things and you know might Congress require there to be a you know non-partisan uh you know hand chosen regulatory board uh which looked at the regulatory boards the wrong word transparency board whatever you want to call it you know people who looked at the algorithms to identify trouble spots before they happen that's something that I think that even even Free Speech Advocates I think could get behind that because it's not it's not shutting down the message it's not regulating what they can and can't say it's saying that we need another set of eyes who maybe don't have an interest in you know the money that they're making identifying whether the messages that they're letting through some of which are disinformation are causing public harm um Yeah you mentioned uh I forget what it was like 10th at what how many millions of hours or videos are posted every hour I forget the exact number it is shocking I mean if you think about you know section 230 and so on you know the if the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal publishes an op-ed that libels you and causes you to get fired from your job and you lose your income and you can sue them and you should and so forth they should be held accountable but you know maybe they get a hundred submissions a day and they publish two or three of them and the ones they publish they fact check carefully and the lawyers go through them or whatever that's easy but you know if you have you know ten thousand hours a day or whatever it is a video right how could you possibly monitor that just by chance a couple weekends ago I was at a tennis Clinic here in Santa Barbara the lunch break one of the other tennis players is a woman works for Google I go you know what do you do I work for Google oh cool you work for Google what do you do oh I'm in charge of their like Safety and Security of our customers for YouTube I went you're one of those oh my God so I got a question for you I said you know I have a podcast I had Helen Joyce uh on the podcast talking about trans issues and it was fine got good ratings no one touched it no Flags or anything like that Jordan Peterson has her on his podcast pretty much the same conversation and it gets flagged and then taken down by YouTube why she goes I I don't even know who that is it's like you know there's like ten thousand Jordan Peters employees yeah well she knew Jordan Peterson she just didn't know Helen Joyce or what this issue was about you know she goes you know we have tens of thousands of employees that this is all they do and we have algorithms that flag it and then somebody's going to watch it sometimes I that made me think you know maybe there is nobody calling the shots you know conservatives think that YouTube is is targeting their content like breaker you videos or something I'm not sure there's any top-down thing going on I think that you know it's just so massively complex and you got these algorithms you know uh scraping through the internet and then you have tens of thousands of people around the world who sit there and watch the podcast or the videos and then they have to make a decision and I'm not sure there's anybody who actually understands how the whole system works such that somebody in Congress would go okay here's what we're going to have you do from now on you know it just seems like such a massively hard problem to solve it is a very hard problem to solve um which is one reason that I think that we should not just leave it up to the social media companies to solve it themselves I mean the the it seems to me that I mean I I was watching the um some coverage a few months back where you know AI all of a sudden you know scared the hell out of everybody all at once and uh even that guy what was his name Hinton who quit Google just so he could say you know this is the apocalypse you know this is an extinction level event um so but I had some hope because I saw and I forget the name of the fellow but he was one of the executives at one of the AI companies I think maybe even the one at uh uh open AI who said regulate us sit down with us help us figure this out you know we we want we don't wanna fulfill these dire predictions we want to do the right thing and so I think there's some room there I think there really is some room for people of uh Goodwill to sit down together and try to figure out how to do this um it's gonna require that the social media companies are not uh you know the only people who have access to their algorithms um and I mean you can you you make a good point a free enterprise system they're they're out there to make money um well there are a lot of companies that are out there to make money we do have regulations you know we don't allow them to do certain things that would lead to public harm yeah just like athletes want they want rules and they want officials to make it fair you know most of them don't want to cheat but the problem is if if the officials or the sanctioning bodies are not enforcing the rules then you have to cheat because if you think somebody else is cheating and it's like a doping problem in sports that I've written about yeah so okay so let's talk about um what we can do about all this uh you have a list of eight let's see eight things we could do first that is to say in context what happens if you hear or if you hear something you don't know if it's true or not right so or you know how all of us can fight back against disinformation first confront the Liars this is a lesson learned from how I'm reading from your okay uh if you uh how to effectively combat side snyers if you just let the liar have the microphone things will only get worse and new recruits will come forward okay so what's the average person supposed to do like write an op-ed to the local newspaper or post on Twitter or Facebook or well One goal of disinformation is to make people feel helpless to make people feel I mean it's shares false information it polarizes us around factual issues and then you know when you hear enough of it maybe you just kind of decide I I can't even tell what's true uh maybe there is no such thing as truth I'm just going to give up and in fact maybe I'm just gonna you know I'm enough of a partisan that I'm just going to believe with the other people in my team tell me that I should believe which is I think a mistake you know to go that way so it's I mean writing an op-ed sure but I have to say I think that the main thing that we can do to fight against disinformation is to be aware of the problem just to be you know it you know to understand the environment that you're in think of those couple of days leading right up to the pandemic did we really know what was coming did we know what the risk was I was in Seattle on you know in early March I mean early March of 2020. um at a uh at the aaas meeting in Seattle and Bill Gates was giving a speech and you know talking about I I don't remember what he was talking about was it was something you know an advocacy for for science and I mean this was not that many days before the you know covet I mean covet was already around but it was still in China and you know we all had a false sense of security we're all in that room unmasked and when I went to the airport to fly home after that meeting I kept seeing people you know coming in on overseas flights wearing masks thinking wow I guess it's bad over there not realizing what was going to happen in you know 10 or 12 days I I'm not 100 sure what the timeline was but my point is we were already under assault from you know covid and we just didn't realize it at the time and I feel like the same thing is happening now with information so you know can are there measures equivalent to wearing you know wearing a mask or getting your vaccine for fighting uh against this information I think there are and I try to outline them in the book um but awareness is one of them that's the I think the main one yeah but on that issue mask say let's use that one you know that first first again this is why the right doesn't trust yes so science institutions right oh don't worry about don't worry about Mass Anthony fauci's oh no no no never mind to change your mind we're gonna wear masks and now it looks like unless you have an m95 with a really tight seal the mass did not work to stop the spread this is what everybody is saying now it's like all right so I mean did they lie or is it just they just didn't know how could they not know that about masks and airborne viruses like that I mean either the mass worker they don't and apparently they don't unless you really consistently wear the m95 man which most people were just wearing a cloth mask which does nothing other than socially so again people on the right go you know what this is just bullsh they're lying to us it it is a real problem because once you lie trust is gone and and as I said the distinctive thing about science is the ability to change your mind over time but if the public doesn't see it that way if they hear you say they hear a sign to say no we're 100 certain this is true and then you change your mind it doesn't look like you change your mind it looks like you lied The Mask issue is a super important one um because I remember when this happened um and my wife's a physician and I remember saying you know so so she was right tip of the spear you know there every day and they were having shortages of n95 masks and I always wondered if one reason why fauci came down as hard as he was about how the public didn't need to wear masks was because they were saving the n95 masks for the Physicians now look I'm all in favor of saving those n95 masks for the for the positions because they're the ones who really needed it but the way to message that was not to say masks don't work or you know in you know casual conversation you know it it wouldn't make a difference Etc because I think that was a lie I think that that you know they I mean look if if masks didn't work why were they saving them for the Physicians and but now their point would be well because they're the ones who are at greatest exposure then say that then say look it couldn't hurt to wear a mask and if you want to be you know the safest you can possibly be you should wear a mask precautionary principle wear a mask but right now we have a shortage of n95 masks and the people who are really at greatest risk are the the healthcare workers so don't wear an n95 mask out in public it's wrong you know you're wasting a precious resource let's leave those for the Physicians if you want to do something to be safe wear a homemade mask I think that would have been a better way to message it and so you know it's not it's not wrong to come to the conclusion that they were kind of lying at that time and they could say it's a virtuous lie because they were lying to save the masks for the health care workers but the wrong conclusion to draw from that is also scientists are lying about everything so we can't believe anything that they're seeing about vaccines or or anything now and I I do Place some of that blame at the feet of the folks in public health because once trust is gone you can't get it back well the idea that vaccines will stop the spread of covid well no that's not also not true I mean the best the only argument I heard that made sense was that if you get vaccinated your symptoms of Kobe covid-19 will be attenuated somewhat therefore maybe you will cough less or sneeze less or whatever and that will maybe slightly slow the spread or decrease the probabilities of you giving it to somebody else will be sick and it you know yeah but it's not going to stop the spread you know again you hear this on the right again they lied about the vaccine right and and so on and this is how it goes it's like damn or closing the schools shutting down the economy you know this now looks like a terrible idea you know children school children are now two years behind reading and math and so on and you know it's not clear to me that it was just a precautionary principle they just didn't know say March April of 2020 when that closure started that they knew that they didn't need to do that but they did it anyway why why did why would best though why why would they why would they I'll give you the I'll give you the far right conspiracy theory to control the population to get us if they can get us to wear mass and and stay home and close the school rules they can do even more they whoever the day is that's the far right conspiracy theory to me you know uh kind of the you know giving the benefit of the doubt to people that you know politicians if I was the mayor Governor president and you stick a mic in my face and go what do we do and you go well let's just carry on business as usual and it turns out that covet is going to be like Ebola or or HIV and it kills everybody or you know 100 million people are going to die or something like that and that's on you so I'd rather say well we let's close the schools just in case but it seems to me that by say the summer of 2020 or fall of 2020 certainly by early 2021 they knew that probably children are not going to be affected like older people or people with uh pre medical conditions and obesity and so on and the children just don't have that problem so let's keep let's reopen the schools I think we were very slow to do that I'm not sure why that is a bureaucratic mess or paperwork I don't know what well I I don't know the answer to that either I mean one is the uh the teachers union right the you the teachers don't want to get sick they don't want to die for their their job I mean the Physicians and the nurses and the ambulance drivers they know what they're getting in for every day when they go to work uh it's maybe different for the for the teachers I mean it's it's somewhat easy after the fact to you know to wonder and I and I certainly don't buy into the nefarious motive about the you know control the population you don't either but you know there are they're not going to get it exactly right they didn't know everything at the time and I think that the appropriate response to that is humility the appropriate response is to say we're not sure that this is the right thing but here's what the data shows so far and so this is what we're going to try and you know I remember at the time asking questions because I was just getting over a serious illness and you know I didn't want to get coveted I mean that that could have been it for me and I remember I remember asking my wife questions about viral load you know could could this be you know like for other uh illnesses one where you know the different people had different amounts of the virus in them and you know with this one thing that you said that uh Michael that maybe the mass wouldn't stop it dead but maybe they would uh you know decrease the spread simply because uh you know the question of viral load well they hadn't measured that at the time but again precautionary principle I thought well you know I'm gonna wear a mask I didn't wear an n95 mask but I wanted you know to to wear the mask and it it was um it was such a clash wasn't I mean we talked before about The Clash on the you know the science versus the values because people don't want to be told what to do yeah and and I think that that some some of where it came from with the uh the Annie massacres and the the anti-vaxxers they simply did not want to be told what to do it's not that they doubted the science they were ticked off that somebody was telling them whether there could kid could go to school what was the appropriate risk for them to take the problem is that it was in a society in which other people have interests and other people have values not unlike the stuff that we were talking about earlier I mean everybody has the right I believe to you know live according to the gender identity that they wish to express nobody that that is I think nobody should be able to take that away from them um whether that is embedded in particular scientific question is a different question but is a normative question is a political question you know I believe that's uh that's not really a question at all but what happened with covet is there was this kind of perfect storm in this clash between you know that I think a lot of the Clash was a clash over over values and people pulled the science into it you know people have values uh disputes and you know they're looking for an ally and so they pull the science into it and so some people would say well you know the the science isn't perfect you know on the the question of of covet well it wasn't but that doesn't mean that it's safer not to wear a mask maybe means that they could say well I'm willing to take the risk but I remember some of the BS at the time of people saying well but you know if you're wearing a mask you're re-breathing into the mask and it's going to make you sicker that's ridiculous so you know the problem is that I think sometimes we get into these values disputes and then try to pull science in to uh to save us and that's when I say I'm a science guy I I want to protect science from the from the ideology uh no matter what the ideology is political religious I think that science is good the way it is in that it is skeptical but open-minded enough to change their mind on the basis of evidence but it always has to be on the basis of evidence so I do have some criticisms of the way that scientists handled it and I know that you know this because I've you've read my uh my other books but I just want to make sure that I said that yeah that's good yeah the doomsdayism also bothers me about the you know people go to extremes on a problem to to enforce the precautionary principle if we don't do this you know we're doomed you know like like Greta themeburg you know it's all over then okay then why bother to try if you know if if we're hopeless here uh and it's same thing with the AI you know that that statement signed by thousands of universe and so forth you know that we should shut down all these companies you know well first of all that's not going to happen uh and second of all why what's the pathway from I mean that was uh what's his name yet kowski's uh Time Magazine op-ed you know we're all gonna die not just all humans every single living organism on Earth is going to die okay how is this going to happen it you know you never get a straight answer about this and you know but but what about all the good stuff that AI could do you know solving human disease problems you know doing these calculations for drug trials right example you know take years if when humans are doing it with our current computer system now can be done in minutes by one of these AI all right you know so again but when people hear that you know the end is coming and then it doesn't they think you know why should I believe the next thing you say you know you said that this was going to happen and it didn't happen and and that that's what bothers me about that yeah I mean uh just to be clear I'm I'm not arguing that they should shut shut down the AI I mean the the most promising thing that I read recently about AI is that they're now using it to predict who's going to get pancreatic cancer pancreatic cancer is the the deadliest form of cancer because they almost never catch it early I think the number was something like 12 percent of people actually you know a curator or catch it early and but they're now using AI to go back through uh electronic medical records and find these data points that nobody was able to put together before about you know did you have pancreatitis did you have this did you you know things that go back years that they would find these patterns that they can now predict three years in advance who's going to get pancreatic cancer which would be incredible so I mean I'm I'm a cancer survivor I think that's not a pancreatic thank goodness but I mean I think that is the you know terrific thing and I'm not arguing that they should shut down uh social social media either it's just that there is I think that there is a better way to go forward with it um which is to you know recognize that there are people out there who are going to abuse it the worry that I have about AI is that you know right now first thing I did when chat GPT opened you know the gpd4 was try to make it do disinformation you know because this is what I do right what can I get it to say about the vaccines that's if it's wrong couldn't get it to do it which made me think oh so somebody's tweaking this somebody out there I mean it's not even scraping you know because if you go out on your internet you scrape enough you're gonna find some you know some yeah RFK Jr stuff and it's going to end up in what chat GPT says but it didn't and I wondered why and and so I came to this conclusion that somebody must be tweaking it but if they can tweak it for that they can tweak it for disinformation too in the wrong hands it can be AI can be weaponized should we get ahead of that should we try to figure it out I think we should there was a meeting uh I don't know if it was the White House but I know it was with the Biden Administration the other day where the the AI execs got together and came up with a set of principles you know to guide them going forward they left some stuff out it wasn't perfect but I was encouraged to see that so I'm not quite the doomsayer um uh here but I am um I am a I'm Vigilant you know I'm somebody who you know wants to get ahead of a problem and and not let it overtake us I'm going to read it from your book here I met Dave this is you speaking I met Dave and Aaron neinhauser the husband and wife team of former labor union organizers they when they helped me publicize a dinner I was hosting in eastern Pennsylvania to talk with coal miners about climate change in their own in their own work that is it nine houses nine houses go to Trump rallies where they film their Encounters in trying to have respectful convincing conversations about why they're interlocutors should stop watching Fox News or news or give up the idea that Hillary Clinton belongs in prison they then use these films to teach classes through their small non-profit hear yourself think in which they train others to have more meaningful conversations across the partisan divide compared to the conversations I've had with flat earthers and other science andizers these are pretty brave folks and they have been more than successful than I have too castronet a little wider you'll run across Daryl Davis I love his work the African-American Blues musician who's talked 200 people out of Ku Klux Klan Steve Hassan the former Mooney I I know Steve pretty well he was on the show too recommend similar techniques to talk people out of Cults you talk about Street epistemology like Pete bagozian does and so on the question is is things like that and pre-bunking do they work and and it's a larger question am I wasting my time publishing skeptic magazine is it just being read by people who think all this other stuff is anyway or are people reading it and going ah huh I didn't realize that okay I changed my mind and you know pick your favorite example vanderlen use the one of the Biden Administration issuing a pre-bunking on the eve of Russia invading Ukraine the intelligence agency I knew this was going to happen and warning us Russia is going to have this false flag operation as a pretense to invading and so be on the alert and that that that was what they were going to do yes yeah it worked and I mean I'm a philosopher so I gotta get this exactly right sometimes nothing will work but if anything will work it is what Daryl Davis is doing what Dave and Aaron neinhauser are doing what Eli saslow talked about in his book rising out of hatred where you know talking people out of white supremacy um face to face conversation calm respectful conversation and you know where I learned that was from your Scientific American article so I wrote that art I forget the the name of that article but uh but I that was my inspiration for my book how to talk to a science denier because that actually has not to my knowledge been empirically tested they have tested whether you can debunk people you know out of uh um their beliefs and sometimes you can sometimes you can't but what about the super super hardcore people the people who you know just been marinating the disinformation and this is why I went to the Flat Earth convention you know to try this to see if it was really possible and what I learned from that is that I think you were right in that article that there's something about face-to-face calm respectful conversation that at least humanizes the opposition it doesn't always work but it will work if anything will work and um here and again this is not scientific but looking at the anecdotal literature anytime you read about a hardcore denier changing their mind that's how it's done you know the the hardcore deniers about vaccines about climate uh really about anything if you dig a little deeper and you find out well now how did you come to radically change your mind it's always because somebody that they loved took the time didn't alienate them didn't call them stupid you know didn't try to shove facts down their throat and you know break off the relationship if they didn't listen I think that that's the key um now is that also the key to our political difficulties I I don't know but I'm really encouraged by the work that Dave and Aaron neinhouse are doing I mean I encourage people to go to their website hear yourself think.org and look at the videos I mean they are out there at the Trump rallies where people are you know screaming invective at them as they're you know speaking but by being calm they will end up having respectful conversations and then they teach seminars on how to have those respectful conversations I'm a big advocate for that but you know you asked me at the opening of our conversation why did I write my new book here's why because what I just described to you is not enough it's like in in an epidemic yes you have to heal the sick you have to go out you have to treat the sick you have to go out and talk to the people who are already you know victimized by the disinformation and try to help them to you know come back to reality but you also have to exercise some preventive medicine you got to remove that pump handle that's infecting everybody and that's fighting the disinformation so I I really wrote this book because I realized at the end of writing how to talk to a science denier and I hadn't done enough I was just talking about how to deal with the Believers not the people who are making them believe and that's where I think we really can also make a difference choking off the uh the amplification of the disinformation you're never going to get Trump to stop you're never going to get Putin to stop can we do more with the media Outlets you know the other ways that they're being Amplified I think we can that's where that's where I think we're going to be able to make a difference and what I'm advocating I don't want people to give up I you know you ask me why did I make the I got one too you asked me why did I make the book small you know it's so tiny because I want people to carry it in their pocket and give it to a friend I want them you know I want this to be in their back pocket or the weight of the Revolution right this should be the book that helps them to realize you know that we're in it we're in a an information war and here's your training manual for what you can do to fight it that's what I believe yeah yeah that's a perfect place to end it there Lee I loved I loved the book I love your work that's all good I do think respectful conversations like we're having here where we disagree on some things or I push back or whatever that's perfectly fine it is hard to have those kind of conversations that I can't imagine going to a trump rally with a camera crew an inciting that I know uh that that kind of those kinds of emotions

Channel: Skeptic

Views: 7,764

Keywords: Michael Shermer, Skeptic, climate change denial, COVID-19, democracy, disinformation, Donald Trump, GMO, morality, nuclear energy, politics, race, reason, science, Science Salon, social media, The Michael Shermer Show, transgender, truth, vaccination, Lee McIntyre

Id: XNN14VC9Htk

Length: 93min 36sec (5616 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 12 2023