Those of us who’ve been fighting climate denial for years see all-too-familiar patterns in attempts to downplay or cast doubt on the threat of COVID-19. There’s been denial that it’s a problem, conspiracy theories, and now, attacks on the models … Continued
Here’s my second Cranky Uncle video, debunking the myth that global warming has stopped over the last decade or so. This animated video is adapted from cartoons in the Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change book. The key fact relevant to … Continued
As everyone are in virtual classrooms at the moment, I thought this was a good time to begin creating video resources for educators looking to 1) teach critical thinking to their students, and 2) explain climate science by debunking the … Continued
On March 20, I gave a webinar Increasing Critical Thinking to Understand and Respond to Climate Misinformation for the Intermountain Sustainability Summit organized by Weber State University. The webinar ended up going for 1 hour 50 minutes with 200 attendees … Continued
Misinformation is damaging, dangerous, and costs lives. It spreads through communities like an infectious disease, and can cause people to behave in ways that endanger themselves and their community. The best way to slow the spread of misinformation is inoculating … Continued
This week, we saw Donald Trump propose the conspiracy theory that hospitals ask for so much medical equipment because of theft. Here’s how this fits with the seven traits of conspiratorial thinking, summarized in Conspiracy Theory Handbook with the acronym … Continued
Last year, I tweeted a series of critical thinking quizzes, challenging people to detect logical fallacies and denialist techniques in false arguments. Confession time: these quizzes weren’t designed to be pedagogical. My goal was purely to test potential quiz questions … Continued
In 2007, Mark Hoofnagle suggested on his Science Blog Denialism that denialists across a range of topics such as climate change, evolution, & HIV/AIDS all employed the same rhetorical tactics to sow confusion. The five general tactics were conspiracy, selectivity … Continued
Psychological research finds that inoculation is an effective way to build public resilience against misinformation. But how do you put that in practice? An important element to building inoculating messages is critical thinking. In 2018, I collaborated with critical thinking … Continued
How do we defend ourselves against fake news? To neutralize misinformation, we first need to understand how misinformation does damage. I find particularly instructive a research paper by Sander van der Linden and colleagues (including Mason’s own Ed Maibach) that … Continued