Two tactics effectively limit the spread of science denialism

“Vaccines are safe and effective,” write researchers Philipp Schmid and Cornelia Betsch in a paper published in Nature Human Behavior this week. “Humans cause global warming. Evolution theory explains the diversity and change of life.” But large numbers of people do not believe that these statements are true, with devastating effects: progress toward addressing the climate crisis is stultifyingly slow, and the US is seeing its largest measles outbreak since 2000.

Getting accurate information across in the face of this science denialism is something of a minefield, as there is evidence that attempts to correct misinformation may backfire, further entrenching the beliefs of science deniers instead. In their paper, Schmid and Betsch present some good news and some bad: rebutting misinformation reduces the ensuing level of science denialism, but not enough to completely counter the effect of the original exposure to misinformation.

Denialism is not skepticism

Schmid and Betsch make a point of emphasizing that science denialism is a universe away from a healthy skepticism. In fact, skepticism of existing results is what drives research to refine and overturn existing paradigms. Denialism, the authors write, is “dysfunctional” skepticism “driven by how the denier would like things to be rather than what he has evidence for.”

Because this denialism springs from motivated reasoning, science advocates are scrambling to understand how to debunk misinformation in a way that motivates their target audience to accept it. Schmid and Betsch focused on strategies to counter misinformation as it is being delivered during a debate, focusing on two possible approaches: correcting misinformation and laying bare the rhetorical techniques that are being used to obfuscate the truth.

For instance, in the case of vaccine denialism, a denier might argue that vaccines are not completely safe. Correcting this misinformation (which Schmid and Betsch call a “topic” rebuttal) could take the form of arguing that vaccines in fact have an excellent safety record. A “technique” rebuttal, on the other hand, would point out that demanding perfect safety is holding vaccines to an impossible standard and that no medication is 100 percent safe.

Attempts to 'erase the science' at UN climate talks

Oil producing countries are trying to "erase the science" on keeping the world's temperatures below 1.5C, say some delegates at UN talks in Bonn.

The chair of the Alliance of Small Island States said Saudi Arabia and others were trying to pretend a key scientific report didn't exist.

Small island states believe keeping temperatures below 1.5C this century is critical to their survival.

A key report in October said this was possible.

But huge emissions cuts would be needed in the short term.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on 1.5C was commissioned by the UN back in 2015.

But when it was presented to climate negotiators in December in Poland, four countries including the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait refused to "welcome" it.

The simmering battle over the report has re-emerged here at this meeting in Bonn.

There has been a serious battle over a text that would include reference to the scientists' conclusion that carbon emissions would have to be reduced by 45% by 2030.

Saudi Arabia has been at the fore in wanting to include text that underlined the uncertainties in the report.

For the group of around 40 small island states, this has proved inflammatory.

I'm not a huge proponent of climate change but still why not talk and go over the report. They say there's some iffy stuff about it. Bring that up during the talks.

Denialism, the authors write, is “dysfunctional” skepticism “driven by how the denier would like things to be rather than what he has evidence for.”

Skepticism is welcomed in science... if you don't believe something, try to prove it wrong, don't put your fingers in your ears and repeat "la, la, la".

This reminds me of one of my professor's favourite sayings. Security through obfuscation is no security at all.

This is my job, right there! Actual security, not "pretend it's not happening because we can't see it" security. Double ROT13 is not an valid encryption scheme!

New property of light discovered

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Spain and the U.S. has announced that they have discovered a new property of light—self-torque. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes how they happened to spot the new property and possible uses for it.

Scientists have long known about such properties of light as wavelength. More recently, researchers have found that light can also be twisted, a property called angular momentum. Beams with highly structured angular momentum are said to have orbital angular momentum (OAM), and are called vortex beams. They appear as a helix surrounding a common center, and when they strike a flat surface, they appear as doughnut-shaped. In this new effort, the researchers were working with OAM beams when they found the light behaving in a way that had never been seen before.

An Arctic fox walked from Norway to Canada in just 76 days. That's 3,500 km, three countries and two continents



An Arctic fox left researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute in disbelief when she travelled more than 3,500 kilometres from Norway to Ellesmere Island, Nunavut in just 76 days last year.

Scientists fitted the young blue fox (just under a year old at the time, according to the BBC) with a tracker and monitored the vixen as she departed her home on the east coast of Spitsenbergen, the Svalbard archipelago’s main island, on March 26, 2018.

After 21 days and a 1,512-kilometre hike across frozen sea, glaciers and ice sheets, she reached northern Greenland on April 16.

On June 10, 2018 the female fox touched Canadian soil after travelling a further 1,990 kilometres, the study reported.

An Arctic fox walked from Norway to Canada in just 76 days. That's 3,500 km, three countries and two continents