Preaching to the unconverted

They say you can't reason people out of positions they haven't been reasoned into. They also say that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. In the context of fighting misinformation, if someone has accepted a position due to favouring ideology over evidence, you'll have a devil of a time persuading them using nothing but data. Indeed, such a thing may well backfire, since they will see your position only as evidence as your own bias against them. And even if you succeed, when you go away they'll still be deeply embedded in their network of like-minded friends, so your impact may quickly wane.

An alternative approach is not to try and shake someone's entire world view at all but to engage them on their own terms. This might not be ideal, but in an emergency it can be by far the best approach : first, no-one, no-one at all, likes having their entire world view overturned ("no, sod off, eating babies is wrong, dammit !"), and second, emotional arguments work just as well for facts as fictions. So if they're not being rational, give them an irrational argument instead. You may not like it, but do you want to help them or not ?

In response, myth-busters attempt to squash coronavirus myths. The modus operandi is to report the myth and then rebut it with science, medical research and expert opinion. The problem with this approach is that science, medicine and experts are, for now, handicapped. There is no vaccine and they have no other easy solution to offer. Given this, alternative explanations are bound to emerge... An approach that reaches beyond “the choir” is needed.

Yes, because lengthy rebuttals inevitably have to describe the myth in detail. This is probably fine for someone reasonably rational and unbiased, but not for someone who already believes it. It's too easy to come across as a big jerk if you write a 50,000 word essay entitled, "Why My Opponent Is So Wrong It's Not Even Funny", even if every word is true (I am certainly guilty of this from time to time). And people prefer a wrong explanation to an incomplete one.

I conducted an action research project with working class HIV/AIDS peer educators to investigate and combat the many non-scientific explanations of HIV/AIDS . The project took seriously the HIV/AIDS myths that the peer educators were encountering... I came to see these alternative explanations not as myths, or nonsense, but folk theories which, in the minds of many, were legitimate alternative explanations to that science. Along the lines of the explanation provided by Hungarian philosopher of mathematics and science Imre Lakatos of scientific research programmes, these myths about the disease were “auxiliary theories” linked, within the South African AIDS epidemic, to a trinity of “core ideas”: a belief in God, racial oppression, and traditional African beliefs.

Rather than repeating accurate, but ineffective, public health messages over HIV/AIDS, I worked with peer educators on alternative ways of shifting attitudes. 

We identified HIV/AIDS folk theories circulating in their communities and ran workshops designed to develop stories, sketches and parables in local idiom that could counter these in easy to grasp and engaging ways. For example, to the belief that God could cure AIDS and that antiretroviral treatment was unnecessary, they developed the story of a man who encounters a lion and, kneeling to pray, pleads with God to save him. The lion devours him. The message? He should have run and asked God to help him run faster. The lesson? Take antiretroviral drugs and pray that God will keep you healthy.

Fascinating approach, though if I might add one final cliché  : the very people most in need of education are the ones most difficult to reach. Having a conversation with someone whose world view is diametrically opposed to yours is often incredibly annoying. Yes yes - it can be enlightening and enriching and all that, in some conditions, but often it isn't. It's very tempting to fall back on the default position and shout, "NO YOU'RE WRONG !". It's not all easy to become so immersed in an idea - without ever really believing it - that you can work out what sort of arguments would be persuasive.

It would be nice to have given some more examples of arguments they used and general advice as to how they formulated them, as well as anecdotes as to how people reacted. Descriptions of biases and fallacies can be found all over the place, but while they're excellent for self-awareness, they're all too easily used as weapons : "HAH ! That's argument from authority, you JERK !". Knowing our opponent is biased does not help us persuade them - it does just the opposite, and persuades us that they're unreachable. This approach of reasoning with them on their own terms, while difficult, might in the long-term be better : once you've reached across to them it may be easier to pull them over the whole way.

Busting coronavirus myths will take more than science: lessons from an AIDS study

The coronavirus pandemic is accompanied by what the World Health Organisation describes as an "infodemic" - misinformation, disinformation or conspiracy theories: "coronavirus myths". These circulate on social media and are further disseminated by influencers, the click-bait infotainment "penny dreadfuls" of the internet, mainstream media which repeat them for audiences to shake their heads at the apparent credulity of others, and some world leaders.