#lewandowsky — Public Fediverse posts

@marcink

Most discussion about the topic is sadly still dominated by the so-called "#BackfireEffect" (beliefs allegedly get stronger when others attempt try to debunk them). Notable researchers like Stephan #Lewandowsky first advised how to avoid the backfire effect (Debunking Handbook, 2012), only to later correct course (Debunking Handbook, 2020), and present the current consensus that this effect is hardly ever reproducible, so: "Debunk often and properly". You can find some studies still leaning towards the existence of the effect, and many more towards it being simply "bad science".

Half a decade ago, though, science has started to realize that the trouble with this static focus on "debunking" is that it does not take the public discourse process into account: it's never about the outrageous, individual claim that gets "debunked" (or not), but about the purpose and evolution of the debate. It's not about "$8 billion" vs "$8 million", but about the purpose of the "wall of receipts" and whether you can be coerced into fulfilling it, by considering it your mission to keep debunking its claims.

To the best of my knowledge, the first study that shifts the focus towards the evolution of the discourse is B. Nyhan (2021): "Why the backfire effect does not explain the durability of political misperceptions" https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1912440117

As he summarizes: "the research that I review suggests that the accuracy-increasing effects of corrective information like fact checks often do not last or accumulate; instead, they frequently seem to decay or be overwhelmed by cues from elites and the media promoting more congenial but less accurate claims."

In other words: what you believe to have "debunked" just mutates and comes back, as elites and partisan media keep telling you things like "he/it actually didn't mean this, but rather that other thing".

That's essentially what "flooding the zone with shit" is designed to trigger. While you're thinking that you and others only need to be fast enough, because it allegedly was the amount of shit that was the problem, the mutations are already one step ahead, because they are the problem. And you can't see it, because you're triumphant in vain, about your "findings" like these:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doge-wall-of-receipts-more-discrepancies/

@briankrebs