The public are overwhelmed with
misinformation and conspiracy theories, causing confusion
about important issues such as climate change, vaccination,
and COVID-19. How do we respond to the firehose of falsehoods?
One way to effectively neutralize the influence of
misinformation and pseudoscience is inoculation. This applies
the idea of vaccination to knowledge - we can build immunity
to misinformation by exposing people to a weakened form of
misinformation. In other words, explain the misleading
techniques used in misinformation. Dr. John Cook will outline
his research into inoculation and how he has combined
psychology and critical thinking with humor, cartoons, and
gamification to overcome some of the psychological hurdles
facing scientists and educators.
About the Speaker:
John Cook is a postdoctoral research fellow
with the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at Monash
University. His research focus is understanding and countering
misinformation about climate change, with an emphasis on using
critical thinking to build resilience. In 2007, he founded
Skeptical Science, a website that won the 2011 Australia
Museum Eureka Prize for the Advancement of Climate Change
Knowledge. He co-authored the college textbooks Climate
Change: Examining the Facts and Climate Change Science: A
Modern Synthesis, as well as the book Climate Change Denial:
Heads in the Sand. In 2020, he published the book Cranky Uncle
vs. Climate Change applying critical thinking, inoculation
research, and cartoons to engage and educate readers about
climate misinformation. He recently released the Cranky Uncle
game with the U.S. creative agency Autonomy, combining
critical thinking, cartoons, and gamification to build
players' resilience against misinformation.