Can We Inoculate Against Stupid? Maybe...

[TygrBright]

Study: to beat science denial, inoculate against misinformers' tricks

By now, probably many of you are aware of the story of how anti-vaxxers deliberately targeted Minnesota's Somali immigrant community with lies about vaccination, resulting in a serious measles outbreak affecting that community.

I can't leave aside the pernicious role racism/nativism play in such an emotionally laden situation. Somalis are not only immigrants, they're, you know, mostly brown, Muslim immigrants- and the liars who apparently wanted their children to get sick with a potentially-fatal illness might or might not have been motivated by racist/nativist motives. But you can be damn' sure that the Somalis are well-aware of the racism/nativism directed at them, which makes it all the crueler that the liars in this case turned that awareness against them, implying that it's because of racism that the Shadowy Evil Vaccinators want their children to have autism.

More deadly in this case, though, was the unprepared nature of the Somali community to absorb, process, and respond constructively to complex information under emotional stress. While vulnerability factors such as limited English and different educational backgrounds certainly made it easier for the liars to influence them, the rest of the American population is far from immune to such manipulation.

All you have to do is examine just how far the anti-vax nonsense has penetrated in broader communities (viz. the 2015 measles outbreak that originated in California at Disneyland and ultimately included cases in 17 states.) Or the election of the Current Occupant in 2016. Or the willingness of far too many Americans to accord equal weight to the findings/claims of 3% of studies/researchers on climate change with the findings/claims of the other 97%. Why are we so vulnerable to people who want to make us stupid?

My "bigger picture" answer is that we never have done awfully well in teaching critical thinking skills in the American education system, but with the decades-long dismantling of that system, even that little has become diluted to the efficacy level of a homeopathic belladonna preparation. And as the evidence piles up that the damage goes beyond a mere willingness to believe bullshit, buy bullshit, and enormously profit the purveyors of bullshit, we'd better start looking at ways to reverse the collective slide into stupid.

These folks are piloting just that:

I asked lead author John Cook how these findings can be implemented in the real world where misinformation about subjects like climate science and vaccines is pervasive.

One of the unique elements of the inoculation we tested in our study is that we never actually mentioned the myth that we were inoculating against. Instead, we explained the general fallacy that the misinformation employed - the technique of using fake experts to cast doubt on expert agreement on a scientific topic. This tells us that explaining the techniques of denial can help people spot attempts to mislead them, hence neutralizing misinformation that uses those techniques.

Arguably, the most effective way to practically implement inoculation is in the classroom. Decades of research have found that one of the most powerful ways to teach science is through misconception-based learning: teaching science by directly addressing misconceptions and misinformation about the science. Two ways we’ve put this into practice is through a Massive Open Online Course on climate science denial that uses the misconception-based-learning/inoculation approach and a college textbook that teaches climate science while debunking common climate myths.

In short, the more we explain the techniques of science denial and misinformation, the more people will become inoculated against them. When we’re exposed to examples of people using cherrypicking or fake experts or false balance to mislead the public, it becomes easier to recognize those techniques, and we’re less likely to fall for them in the future. Teaching people to recognize those techniques is a primary goal of the Denial101x free online course mentioned by Cook.

The article, and the attached links and references, are well worth careful attention.

I plan on enrolling in the course, which begins on May 30th, myself.

Anyone want to join me?

hopefully,
Bright

[TygrBright]

1. Wow. Talk about sinking like a stone.

This must not be a very important topic, I guess.

sadly,
Bright

[countryjake]

2. Out here in the PNW, it's the Mumps (same vaccine)

Immunizations in Washington are still below an ideal threshold. Why that’s putting kids at a risk for mumps
http://www.theolympian.com/news/politics-government/article149512484.html

An unusually high rate of parents in Washington state are preventing their children from getting vaccinated, an issue health officials say might be contributing to a statewide mumps outbreak.

The state Department of Health reported Monday that nearly 5 percent of kindergartners in Washington weren’t immunized for the 2016-17 school year because of the personal beliefs of their parents or for medical reasons.

The rate hasn’t changed much since 2011, but it’s still more than double the national average of 2 percent, according to the department.

It’s also noteworthy, officials say, as Washington deals with its highest number of mumps cases since 1976.

The high exemption rate is part of why the state falls below a national goal of immunizing 95 percent of kindergartners, a benchmark meant to “ensure a communicable disease can’t spread easily through a population,” said Paul Throne, a spokesman for the health department’s immunization office. Some children also don’t get vaccines because they lack access to them.

Mumps Outbreak
http://www.doh.wa.gov/YouandYourFamily/IllnessandDisease/Mumps/MumpsOutbreak

823 Confirmed and probable cases in WA as of May 3, 2017 at 4:30 p.m.