Have You Been Duped into Believing Fake News?

Have You Been Duped into Believing Fake News?

I thought I was very good at discerning the difference, but it turns out I was mistaken. Fortunately, my lifelong reliance on the scientific method gets me out of trouble.

Spoiler alert: This article discusses fake news, the scientific method, the peer review process for scientific papers, and attempts to dispell some myths.

How did it begin?

(How did what begin?)

I just read an article that I clicked on in FB. It contained surprising news about crypto. It seemed like the article was on Forbes, but the article content sounded really unlikely, which made me look more carefully.

It had the Forbes logo, but it was not Forbes. (Fake Forbes!)

1. "They" knew I am into crypto.
2. "They" sent an article that seems like it is from a credible source.

(Who is "they?" "They" is the advertising AI at Facebook. I think it might be a runaway train. Later, I briefly discuss the documentary "The Social Dilemma," in which they discuss this in more detail.)

Fake news is getting more sophisticated, and we need to learn to be very skeptical consumers of information if we are going to get through this time in history. I have my beliefs, and you have yours. I don’t want to tell you what to believe. However, what I do want, for every person on Earth, is that you take the time to consider your ideas and examine your beliefs.

The human brain looks for shortcuts, and it is easier to believe someone else who “seems” to know what they are talking about than to truly look into something. However, what does it mean to truly look into something? What can you trust? Who can you trust?

How you choose to decide what is or is not true is a very intimate thing. It is the way that you interact with reality.

What is Science?

The Scientific Method... Simplified?

Personally, I believe in science. However, I don’t blindly believe in science. Many people don’t really understand what science is. To me, science is simply a set of methods that can help us mere humans to figure out the world around us.

At its most basic level, for those of us who really believe in science, we perform scientific experiments of one sort or another all the time. They might not be the type of rigorous experiments we could write up in a peer-reviewed journal, but they are still science. What do I mean?

Suppose, for example, that I have not slept for 30+ hours (which happens more often than I would prefer) and I begin to see shadows in my peripheral vision. From experience, I know that these are mild hallucinations brought on by sleep deprivation. However, what if I did not know this? What if it was the first time it happened?

I see shadowy figures in the periphery of my vision. What are the possibilities?

1. There are actually shadowy figures in the room. Scary!
2. I am going insane.
3. My vision is going.
4. I have mild hallucinations brought on by sleep deprivation.

Those possibilities could be called alternate hypotheses (plural of hypothesis). A hypothesis is like a mini-theory. Then, we can do an experiment to figure out which is the most likely hypothesis (or maybe none of them are correct). The first thing I would do, if I had never had these visions before, would be to ask someone else if they saw them also. The next thing I would do is to sleep because testing for insanity or for bad vision are much more difficult than going to sleep even though sleep is often elusive for me.

Once I woke up, the figures would be gone. Could I conclude that hypothesis 4 is correct? No. It could be that there are shadowy figures in the room that happen to leave when someone else arrives. It could be that I am going insane, but only sometimes. It could be that my vision is going, but it is sporadic. However, it would make hypothesis 4 seem like it was the most likely one, and, personally, I would not bother doing further experiments unless the shadowy figures occurred again when I was not sleep deprived.

That is what I consider to be “personal science.”

So, what about Science Science? Can it go wrong? Of course it can. And it does. Just look what happened with the Wakefield paper. Even though they messed up horrifically and it was retracted over 20 years ago, many people are still afraid of vaccination. By the way, “the children that Wakefield studied were carefully selected and some of Wakefield’s research was funded by lawyers acting for parents who were involved in lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers. The council found Wake-field had acted unethically and had shown 'callous disregard' for the children in his study, upon whom invasive tests were performed.”

This is a classic case of science going wrong because it was done incorrectly, reported incorrectly, and then proceeded to mess people up for at least one generation. It simply cannot go more wrong than that.

How Can Science Go Wrong?

Science can go wrong in several ways:

1. When it is not done properly. Sometimes, it is simply done incompetently. There are methods, such as double-blind, randomized controlled tests, that are the gold standard of scientific procedure. It is not always possible to adhere to these protocols because of what is being studied, but some people just design their studies poorly or take shortcuts.
2. When it is done unethically. This was the case in the Wakefield study, for example. There are ethics boards, but scientific research has to be funded by someone, and that someone likely has a vested interest in a certain outcome.
3. When it is not properly peer reviewed.

What is Peer Review and Why is it Important?

When a scientific article is submitted for publication to a journal with peer review, the editor of the journal reads the paper first. If the editor thinks it is worthwhile, they send it to at least two reviewers who are experts in the very specific and narrow field of the paper. The reason for this is that, being experts in this very narrow field, they are in a position to tell the editor whether the paper is worthwhile or full of crap. Also, they can do fact-checking and figure out whether anything needs to be changed prior to publication (if it should be published).

It's pretty clear that a journal without a peer review process is quite pointless because you wouldn’t know whether it was good science or just some words that the writer made up. However, that being said, there are issues with the peer review process. The main two issues, in my opinion, are:

1. Some reviewers (hopefully the minority) might not give a paper an adequate review prior to accepting or rejecting it. We all have busy lives, and this is usually unpaid work, but it is very important, so this is possible weak link.
2. Occasionally, if an author of a paper is very high profile, some reviewers are reluctant to criticize their work even though the review process is anonymous. That is, the reviewers are anonymous. They see the author of the paper. For example, Watson, of Watson and Crick, the duo who helped to determine the shape of DNA, later came up with some weird ideas that were published in scientific papers. I strongly suspect that these ideas were not backed by science, but that reviewers found it difficult to reject the great Watson. However, they should have.

It's easy to understand how the second issue can happen. Imagine that you were reviewing something by someone who was your idol in some way. It would be hard to stamp “reject” on it I think. I had a professor once who actually did reject a paper by someone famous, and she showed us (her summer students) why. Her reasoning was sound, and it was a brave decision. She was gutsy. And mean. Ha ha.

So, how do we know what is true in an age where anyone can create a website, and anyone can write an article? How do we determine truth in an era when there is technology that could allow me to make a video that would make me look or sound like anyone? That technology is only going to get more sophisticated, so we have to get better at being skeptical.

Skeptic is a Beautiful Word

Being a skeptic is often given negative connotations, but, unfortunately, we cannot afford the luxury of being naïve. I hate to quote Ronald Reagan, but we must “trust, but verify” everything these days. If something sounds outrageous, offensive, or peculiar, hold your outrage.

Research. But how? If you do a simple Google search, you might go wrong. False news outlets are cunning! Often there are multiple websites, YouTube channels, etc., all of which agree with each other. They are seemingly completely unrelated to each other. Yet they are fake news.

How do we know they are fake news? How can we know? It is hard to know sometimes. Often, I click on the “news” button when I am doing a Google search. This at least takes me to sites that Google considers to be news sources. Often the news is outdated, and some of those sites are not reliable, but it is a good starting point.

I like to check Snopes. Some people believe that “snopes has been discredited,” but I disagree. Either way, I find it interesting to find out what Snopes has to say. I prefer to have multiple opinions rather than an echo chamber. I usually disagree with most opinions, but that’s okay. I wish more people could peacefully disagree with each other without malice or personal insults.

Example of a Simple Fact Check to Illuminate Fake News

Here's a good example: I read a few months ago (on Twitter) that a New York doctor was stating that babies were not allowed to go home with their parents from the hospital unless the parents were vaccinated. That is simply not true. See, for example, this USA Today article.

When I read the tweet, I was fairly certain it was not true because it was such a shocking allegation. However, most people responded to this tweet by being outraged. Nobody argued or tried to disprove it (including me, I am afraid). However, for my own peace of mind, I did fact check it.

This was prior to the above USA Today article being released. First, I checked the name of the “New York doctor” in question. He was actually not a New York doctor. He was a doctor in Oman I think (maybe Qatar or UAE… I apologize, but I cannot remember). That is relevant only because he was not residing in the United States. The tweet and article that it linked to implied that he had some knowledge about the situation. Since he is not in the United States, there is no reason to believe he would know anything about the policy of New York hospitals, so I was immediately even more suspicious.

Next, I looked up New York hospitals and what their policies actually were on releasing newborns. Did they list a requirement for vaccination? No. They strongly encouraged new parents to get vaccinated. They required their own staff to be vaccinated. However, there was nothing anywhere stating that they would not release babies to unvaccinated parents.

I concluded that it was fake news. In a country like the United States, it seems inconceivable that a hospital would refuse parents their own child. However, if they did, which seems incredibly unlikely, they would put it on their website. It would be well known, not a nasty surprise! That is one of the positive things about living in a Western country. The rules and laws are posted and not arbitrary. (At least, in theory…)

The thing that bothers me is that, although it was a very easy check to find that this was fake news, the people who wanted to believe it did not check. I think most people who thought it was fake news also did not check. They probably immediately assumed it was fake news. However, that is also a bad policy.

The problem is that we have limited time, and we don’t want to spend it all on fact checking stories that we already have a gut feeling are “true” or “false.” However, I really believe that if we are to move forward as a society, we have to make it a habit to fact check anything that seems odd or outrageous. We simply cannot afford to believe anything until this fact check is complete!

Conclusion

I have written some things you might agree with or disagree with. Maybe you have strong negative opinions about science and/or vaccination. I think it is excellent to question things. However, I think it is very important to make sure you are questioning things because you truly wonder about them, and not because someone is manipulating you for their own agenda.

I saw a documentary called, “The Social Dilemma,” and I will have to review it one of these days. It was on Netflix, and I strongly recommend it. It explains how a lot of this fake news and social division arose. It is shocking, but important.

I don’t want to add to the division that is rampant these days. I have my strong beliefs, and you have yours, and I am okay with that. I hope you are as well. The most important thing is for both of us to keep an open mind.

I try to do that. I think it is important to frequently read articles that have an opinion opposite to yours, and to read them with an open mind. If you feel yourself thinking it is crazy talk, ask yourself this, “If any part of this were not crazy talk, what would it be? Why would it not be crazy?” Sometimes, try to hold the opposite opinion from your own for five minutes. Ten minutes. See what’s different. Does anything make more sense? What makes less sense?

Honestly, this is a good way to learn. You can learn about yourself and about others. Even if you still disagree after this exercise, it might give you some empathy and insight into the alternative viewpoint. For example, although I think vaccination is very important, I can appreciate that many people are nervous about it. I realize that, even though we have been doing research on RNA vaccines since the 90s, and millions of people have been vaccinated, RNA vaccines are new, and that concerns some people.

I was concerned at first also. Since I am lucky in that I was given a basic (Bachelor’s) science education, I can read scientific papers. I am also lucky because, through a friend, I have access to e-journals. Therefore, I was able to read a dozen or so original papers, and that satisfied my worries. Additionally, I know that, contrary to some people’s belief, the RNA does not alter your genetic code. That is a myth. (See, for example, https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/will-mrna-vaccine-alter-my-dna

Should we have zero concerns about vaccines ever? That would be ridiculous. There is a risk involved with all vaccines. Because of the internet, anyone who has a remotely negative response will let you know all about it, and this creates a feeling that more people have negative responses than actually do.

I think part of the issue is that most people don’t have a good feel for Mathematics or Statistics. Unfortunately, with any treatment, some people will respond poorly. It’s a very sad fact of life. The question that we have to ask ourselves as scientists, as human beings, is, “Is this treatment better or worse than the illness?”

Sometimes, people see the number of deaths due to the covid vaccine, and they forget that it is a very small percentage. Some people have heard that thousands of people have died from the vaccine, and they don't consider that hundreds of millions of people have received the vaccine.
The death rate due to vaccine is 0.0022% according to the CDC. Some would prefer it was zero, but that is pretty close to zero, and I don't think any treatment has a zero death rate (even placebo?)

When we compare this to the number of people who die of covid (1.2% in the United States, or 1.1% in Canada), it seems obvious that the risk of getting COVID and dying from it is much higher than the risk of remaining unvaccinated. Even when people discuss possible blood clots from the vaccine, again, the risk of blood clots from covid is literally 100 times higher.

To use the vaccination numbers above, if 0.0022% of vaccinated individuals die from the vaccine, that means that if you had 100,000 people, say, American citizens, 2.2 might die from the vaccine. However, since approximately 1.2% die from Covid, that means that 1200 might die from Covid. So, in that group of 100,000 people, if everyone were vaccinated, the likelihood is that 1198 more people would be alive afterwards.

I may not be the biggest fan of humanity, but I would have to be pretty misanthropic not to prefer that people remain alive!

I have to emphasize that I don’t want to tell anyone what to do. However, it is important to realize that there is a lot of false information going around, and you owe it to yourself, your loved ones, and your community to make sure that you don't fall prey to it. I think it is really important if you are going to make an informed decision to really look at both sides. I certainly did.

It is so easy to fall prey to misinformation. I truly did believe the story I read this morning on Facebook at first and I initially genuinely thought it was from Forbes.

We have to get into the habit of verifying everything because, unfortunately, that is the world we live in. That is why I love science. It is a way of understanding and learning about the world. It can help keep us from backsliding into superstition, etc.

Until next time...

Much love!

Harlow

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Photo Credit: The awesome photo at the beginning of this post was from Pixabay.com.

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P.S. At over 3000 words, and with the topic being both dry and a little controversial, if you read the whole thing, you definitely deserve a gold star! It's funny how motivating those little gold star stickers can be, isn't it? Five gold stars!

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