 Winston Churchill summed up one of the problems with misinformation, a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. Churchill said this before the internet and the age of Twitter. If he saw how quickly misconceptions can go viral these days, it would make his head spin. While myths can spread very quickly, they unfortunately don't disappear so easily. On the contrary, many myths are sticky, they can be memorable and notoriously difficult to dislodge. So this lecture explains how to debunk myths. We'll look at how to structure a debunking in order to effectively reduce the influence of misconceptions, but we'll come to that later. The golden rule of debunking is fight sticky myths with stickier facts. To debunk a myth, you need to replace it with an alternative fact that is more plausible and compelling than the myth. The stickier the fact, the more effective the debunking. You also shouldn't put too much emphasis on the myth, otherwise there's a risk that as time passes, the myth is all people will remember from your debunking. So you might ask, why mention the myth at all? The scientific research into inoculation theory says we do need to specify the myth. Inoculation theory comes from a line of psychological research that applies the metaphor of inoculation to knowledge. The research finds that just explaining the science isn't enough. It doesn't necessarily equip people to make sense of myths that distort the science. We do need to specify the myth. So it's a balancing act. Don't put too much emphasis on the myth, but don't ignore it altogether. What inoculation theory tells us is that in order to build resistance to misconceptions, we need to expose people to a weak form of the myth. Just like a flu shot. What do I mean by a weak or ineffective form of the myth? Well, a few things. Before repeating a myth, you need to warn people that you're about to mention the myth. This can be something as simple as saying a common myth is, or if your debunking is visual, then use visual cues to make it obvious that it's a myth. This puts people on guard so that they're less likely to be influenced by the myth. The second way of presenting a weak form of the myth is to explain why the myth is wrong. Typically, you do this by explaining the fallacy that the myth uses to distort the science. A useful framework for the fallacies of science denial comes from a paper by Pascal Dierthelm and Martin McKee. They found that movements that deny a scientific consensus share five characteristics. Fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry picking, and conspiracy theories. The way I remember the five traits is the acronym FLIC. Fake experts are used to try to foster the faking impression of an ongoing scientific debate. Logical fallacies distort the science by drawing incorrect or inappropriate conclusions from the data. Impossible expectations demand standards of evidence that are impossible to achieve. One version of this argument is that if we don't know everything, then we know nothing. But this ignores the parts of climate science where we have a high level of understanding. Cherry picking involves using small select pieces of data while ignoring any inconvenient data. You know someone is cherry picking when the conclusion they get from a small piece of data conflicts with the conclusion arising from the full body of evidence. Conspiracy theories are bound among groups who disagree with an overwhelming consensus across the global scientific community. How else do you explain nearly every scientist in the world disagreeing with you? There are sub-categories of fallacies too. For example, under logical fallacies you find red herrings which distract people with relevant information. Other logical fallacies include misrepresenting or oversimplifying the science. Making faulty lips of logic is called jumping to conclusions. Presenting only two choices when other options are available is a false dichotomy. If you successfully explain the fallacy of a myth, you neutralise the myth. In fact, you can even make it backfire. In my psychology research, I've been experimentally testing the impact of misinformation and how to neutralise it. In one experiment, I showed participants an online petition signed by 31,000 scientists or science graduates who don't think human activity is disrupting the climate. I also asked the participants to estimate how many climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming, a measure of perceived consensus. This graph shows the change in perceived consensus after reading the misinformation. The horizontal axis represents political ideology. On the left are people who are politically more liberal and on the right are people who are more politically conservative. The red line shows a change in perceived consensus. Anything below the dotted line means a decrease in perceived consensus. After being told that 31,000 scientists didn't believe that human activity was disrupting climate, perceived consensus didn't change for people at the liberal end of the political spectrum. But perceived consensus fell by 20% among people at the right or conservative end. The misinformation had the biggest effect among conservatives. The blue line here represents another group who first read an explanation of the technique of fake experts. Then they read the misinformation that used fake experts. When people were informed about the fake expert strategy prior to reading the misinformation, then the misinformation was neutralised. Intriguingly, it even caused a slight increase in conservatives' perceived consensus after reading the misinformation. If people already understand the fallacy of a myth when they encounter that myth, then that myth can backfire. So let's bring all this together. And effective debunking requires the following elements. First, a sticky fact. Your debunking should emphasise a sticky alternative fact. Second, you do need to specify the myth, but make sure you provide a warning before specifying it. Lastly, explain how the myth distorts the science. What is the technique or fallacy that it uses? The science tells us that the fact myth fallacy format is an effective way of debunking myths. As Winston Churchill reminds us, myths can spread quickly. This is why we need to explain how the myths distort the science. This can neutralise misinformation or even make it backfire.