SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017 GQ.COM.AU 199of the fire, as those who hadn’t
been issued the correction at all.
Statistically speaking, the
correction made no difference.
Notably, even after Welch had
been arrested for his Comet Ping
Pong attack, he refused to accept
that the story of the paedophile
ring was entirely false. “The intel
on this wasn’t 100 per cent,” he
eventually conceded to the New
York Times. “I regret how
I handled the situation.”
But in some cases, attempting
to correct information is not
simply ineffective – it can have
an adverse impact. Some of
Prof Lewandowsky’s earliest
research began around the time
of the 2003 Iraq War and
initial claims by the Bush
administration that Saddam
Hussein was harbouring weapons
of mass destruction.
His studies revealed that
on certain issues – particularly
topics that had become
politicised – attempts to correct
misinformation could lead
to a ‘backfire effect’, where
a correction makes someone
believe in misinformation more,
not less. “People who came to the
lab believing that there were
weapons of mass destruction,
actually believed it even more
strongly afterwards,” he says
of his attempts to set the
record straight.
People’s political outlook plays
such a role in how they perceive
certain issues that Prof
Lewandowsky says it’s possible to
predict a person’s views on climate
change based not on their ideas
around the environment, but on
the free market. Put simply, the
less someone believes in
government intervention and
regulation, the more likely they
are to reject scientific evidence
about climate change, since it
doesn’t fit with their broader
worldview. They are predisposed
to believing it’s a hoax.
Present data shows that around
97 per cent of publishing climate
clarifications, fact-checking
Trump’s declarations: “‘I wasn’t
a fan of Iraq. I didn’t want to
go into Iraq.’ (He was for
an invasion before he was against
it),” and so on. The article shows
Trump did not go a day without
making a public false statement
until March 1 – 41 days into
his presidency.
“On the one hand, it’s terrific –
Donald Trump’s twitter feed
is a source of inspiration for me as
a researcher,” says Prof
Lewandowsky. “But, of course,
it’s tragic because what we have
now is a public discourse that is
not constrained by anything.
Donald Trump accuses others of
spreading fake news, when
in actual fact, it’s Donald Trump
who is not telling the truth a lot
of the time.”
Fact-checking website Politifact
has assessed that just 17 per cent
of what Trump says is ‘true’ or
‘mostly true’ – compared with 49
per cent for Barack Obama. Still,
Trump’s previously accused
American news channels CNN,
NBC, CBS, ABC, as well as
the New York Times and the
Washington Post, of being what
he calls ‘fake news’.
One person tasked with
addressing misinformation is
reporter Linda Qiu. Having
previously worked at Politifact, she
is now a dedicated fact-checker
for the New York Times and is one
of those leading the fight against
fake news.
Continued on p256.scientists agree that humans are
responsible for global warming.
Yet according to a report from the
Yale Program for Climate
Change, released in July, more
than 90 per cent of Americans are
unaware there is a scientific
consensus on climate change. At
least part of the reason for this is
the way the media frames the
issue as a debate – as though the
scientific community is evenly
divided on the issue.
“The media often thinks their
job is to be balanced,” says Prof
Lewandowsky. “Sometimes that
is totally appropriate – when it
comes to both sides of a political
issue – but when it comes to things
that are evidence based and that
are scientific, balance is more
of a bias because it can create
the appearance of debate where
there is none.”
And when it comes to science,
doubt can be dangerous.
“Even when people know that
there is a scientific consensus, if
you can present them with
a contrary view, it will lower their
confidence in the science,” he
says. “The moment you have the
appearance of the scientific
debate in public, people lose their
commitment to the science. If
you’re not a scientist and you
don’t read the literature, it’s very
easy to get a sense of a debate
where there is none.”
Certain groups are well aware
of this. During the ’50s and ’60s,
tobacco companies undertook
a deliberate campaign of
misinformation aimed at casting
doubt on the link between
smoking and lung cancer. Though
a scientific consensus was found
between smoking and lung
cancer in the early ’50s, tobacco
company Philip Morris issued
public statements throughout the
’60s declaring there was “no
definitive proof that smoking
causes lung cancer,” that
“knowledge is insufficient” or that
the smoking-cancer link is an
“open que st ion”.In 1999, the US Department of
Justice brought a landmark legal
case against the company, alleging
fraud and unlawful conduct. It
resulted, seven years later, in
a successful 1683-page judgement
that detailed “a massive 50-year
scheme to defraud the public” by
casting doubt on the scientific
consensus of the link between
smoking and cancer.
One piece of evidence often
used to cast doubt on the scientific
consensus on climate change is
the Oregon Petition. Launched
by US biochemist and politician
Arthur B Robinson – who believes
climate change is a hoax – it began
circulating in 1998. The petition
claims to bear the signatures of
31,000 scientists who reject the
idea that humans are responsible
for global warming.
However, the petition is not
limited to climate scientists and
is instead open to anyone with
a Bachelor of Science degree
or higher. It has also been
criticised as poorly vetted, since
one of the signatories was Charles
Darwin, who had been dead for
over 100 years at the time of the
petition’s publication. A member
of ’90s girl group the Spice Girls
also features twice on the list –
once as a microbiologist.On June 23, the New York Times
published a list of false public
statements made by President
Trump in the days since his
January 20 inauguration.
Alongside each of them wereATTEMPTS TO CORRECT
MISINFORMATION CAN LEAD
TO A ‘BACKFIRE EFFECT’,
WHERE PEOPLE BELIEVE IT
MOREMMMORE, NOT LESS.ORE, NOT LESS.ORE, NOT LESS.NOTLESS