The Misinformation Age

On this episode of The Open Mind, we're delighted to welcome University of California, Irvine professors, Cailin O'Connor and James Owen Weatherall.

Disinformation; misinformation, what is the science of how false beliefs spread? This is the critical understanding that my guest today argue is required to correct falsehoods and to ensure that they don't hijack and certainly don't monopolize the public interest.

O'Connor and Weatherall have authored the new Yale University Press volume “The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread.” They argue that throughout history, social factors specifically who you know, your network of friends and family most determined whether false beliefs spread and whether they can be debunked. The authors conclude, “The worry that we can never gain complete certainty about matters of fact is irrelevant.” And as the New York Times reviewed, “O'Connor and Weatherall show how industrial interests have repeatedly exploited any whiff of uncertainty to argue against government regulation.”