Fighting Fake News: A Guide to Resisting Social and Mental Pollution

Fake news continues to get attention, at least on the nuttier sides of the Web. Deliberately misleading news and analysis are two obvious aspects of a bigger problem - the spread of unscientific, immoral, or counterfactual thinking. Illogical and counterfactual are easy to explain. Immoral ideas don't necessarily violate a specific moral code. Instead, I used that term to describe ideas that go against our values. A policy idea that undermines the family or threatens human health can be considered a form of social pollution. 

The Connection Between Fake News and Social Pollution:

Quick...what is the news for? Telling us capitalism is raping the earth or liberals are destroying the country? If either definition seems close to the truth to you, then this post is about you. 

Social pollution is my label for irrational, illogical, and counterfactual thinking, you know, the stuff that critical thinking is supposed to help us resist. Defense against social pollution boils down to a combination of critical thinking and public education campaigns against propaganda and nonsense.

An opinion you don't like is not a form of social pollution. It has to go deeper than mere disagreement in three ways:

(1) It the idea is illogical it probably is a form of social pollution. 
(2) If the idea contradicts facts or scientific theories, then it probably counts as social pollution.
(3) If the idea undermines widely-held values, it definitely counts as social pollution. 

Many ideas for laws, policies, and programs seem to meet one of those criteria. Many Left-leaning and Right-leaning news outlets help spread those ideas. More on in a moment. Whenever someone shares an idea that fails one of those three tests, their idea is social pollution. Whenever a pundit or politician shares a solution to a social problem that fails one of those three tests, the person is spreading social pollution. 

How Pollution Starts and Spreads:

Social pollution comes from all parts of the social environment. As faith leaders, talking heads, politicians, culture critics, documentary filmmakers, and activists provide us with good information, they also feed us illogical and irrational ideas and opinions. Add to this the natural biases we all have in thinking and evaluating evidence, and you have the potential for trouble.  

Advertising is part of the problem, but only a small part. Will that sports car really make you more appealing to the ladies? Will a crystal on a chain really balance your energies? Advertisers know how to play with our emotions and perceptions to make their products or services appeal to people. They are only a small part of the problem, except in a couple of cases. 

1. Advertisements for scam products and services - Can you really get rich buying foreclosed properties? No. Will a nutritional supplement sold on late-night television really slow the aging process? No. 

2. Political advertising - Many advertisements dealing with politicians, social problems and laws use traditional advertising tactics and outright lies to move viewers to action. 

The abuse of fact and logic illustrates what social pollution is, and what it leads to - opinions, behaviors, a worldview divorced from reality that has real effects on peoples' lives. 

Individual and Social Causes:

Social pollution spreads with help from politicians, activists, scam artists, and political commentator who exploit our fears, our distraction, and our lack of scientific knowledge. Those are social factors. The human mind also helps because everyone falls victim to psychological biases and various thinking errors. This is a subject for a long book, but you can quickly understand how each of those elements promotes social pollution:

1. Our Unreliable Minds - Everyone is prone to cognitive biases, errors in thinking, that cannot be overcome by education or by intelligence either. Modern societies spawn people with an interest in selling lies and nonsense. Some of those individuals have political or religious motives, while others only care about the money. Either way, they are selling ideas that do not benefit the individual who hears them.
2. Science Literacy - Many bad ideas come from the use and abuse of concepts in the natural sciences and the social sciences. The natural sciences get lots of attention from science educators, and probably need more of them, But, social problems are sociological and psychological problems, not challenges the public could tackle by learning more physics or biology. 
3. People Selling Fear/Division/Disorder - There is a special type of propaganda peddler, called an availability entrepreneur, who makes sure we have plenty of biased information on whatever threat or problem or crisis they want to promote. Those issues may indeed be serious ones, but the availability entrepreneur only cares about advancing their own worldview and making money. They spread fake news, pseudo-scientific and morally questionable ideas look legitimate and spread.  

Each of those contributing factors has to be fought against in different ways. Let's take a quick look at that subject next. 

Fighting Back Against Social Pollution:

This fight has two fronts - the mind and the social environment - that need to be attacked in different ways. Defending one's mind begins with learning to evaluate arguments and evidence. Better education is the best defense. Lesson plans and public education campaigns need to target specific issues, to prevent the resulting programs and policies from becoming contaminated with patent nonsense.

An educated mind is the best defense for the individual. Being smart or having common sense helps, but it is not enough. Having a properly trained mind means having training in: 

• Critical thinking, 
• The use and abuse of statistics, and
• The fundamentals of logic.

Social pollution is a social problem that can be fought through advocacy and public education efforts. Many such efforts exist now, to address a range of problems:

• climate change denial
• promotion of young-earth creationism and Intelligent Design
• vaccine hysteria 

​More needs to be done, of course. The world needs campaigns against other forms of social pollution, some with a more direct impact on daily life. Myths about violent crime come to mind. 

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