Chris Casey:
Misinformation about science that pops up on Google searches, lands in social media feeds and proliferates across society isn't necessarily new. Exactly 10 years ago this month, and I'm holding it right here in my hand now, is a March 2015 edition of National Geographic and the cover story with a big headline, The War on Science. So it's a problem that's been with us and continues to seemingly grow. And so today, to dig into this seemingly intractable issue, the continued spread of misinformation and disinformation about science, we'll chat with a couple experts who are working to both prevent and reverse this trend.
Welcome to a new episode of Health Science Radio, where we talk about current health science and issues with University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus experts. My name is Chris Casey and I'm the director of Digital Storytelling at our Office of Communications. Today I'm joined by my co-pilot, Carie Behounek, a science writer on our content team. How are you doing, Carie? How are you feeling about your debut here on Health Science Radio?
Carie Behounek:
Well, I feel really great. I'm really happy to be here. Thank you. And this is a topic that's really near and dear to my heart as somebody with an autoimmune disorder, and I've encountered a lot of misinformation in my own research, so happy to be here.
Chris Casey:
Great. Well, we're very much looking forward to talking about this issue. And as I mentioned, we have a couple of great guests to dig into it with. Our guests today are Dr. Aimee Bernard, associate professor of immunology and microbiology, and Dr. Laura Scherer, associate professor of medicine in the cardiology division. Both Aimee and Laura are in our University of Colorado School of Medicine. Dr. Bernard teaches immunology to students at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus and is co-director for the Colorado Clinical and Translational Science Institute's workshops on communicating your science to the public. She's an advocate of public health regularly speaking at the Colorado Legislature about issues pertaining to science. In all her roles, Aimee strives to serve as a positive influence on education, public health policy and science communication.
Dr. Scherer is associate director of the Colorado program for Patient-Centered Decisions at ACCORDS, which supports interdisciplinary research at CU Anschutz. She is a social psychologist who works to help people make better medical decisions that incorporate both scientific evidence and their personal goals and preferences. Laura's research also seeks to understand and address skepticism towards scientific evidence. So welcome to our program both Aimee and Laura.
Laura Scherer:
Thank you very much.
Aimee Bernard:
Thank you.
Chris Casey:
Just to maybe start things off, as I mentioned in the opening here, the issue of science misinformation isn't a new problem and I'm just wondering, given your areas of expertise, what have both of you encountered in this area and what are you noticing in terms of science misinformation and maybe when you first knew it was a problem and whether you see it growing as a problem?
Aimee Bernard:
I can start us off. I think it's been around for centuries. You can think of the cowpox vaccine in the beginning where there were cartoons, I can see the cartoon in my head, where they would show little cows popping out of people's bodies around that time, because of the fear and the uncertainty. I think a lot of it is grounded in fear and uncertainty and emotions and maybe not understanding how science works.
But I feel like it's been around a long time. I think it's becoming exacerbated now with social media and how people are using social media as their source of news. And just like if you like one cat video, you keep getting more cat videos and you keep getting more of the same. I think that we're not being exposed to all the different things. Like back when I was growing up, I remember there were only a couple of news stations and you could only tap into one thing, or a couple, and they seemed – maybe I'm wrong – but they seemed less biased or politicized. But I feel like just the way that social media and news is going for clickbait and attention, it's really about our attention. Everyone wants to grab our attention.
And one thing that I think is happening is science is losing at grabbing attention in a way that's exciting and engaging and storytelling and makes people inspired and want to take action. That's a part of it. I will cede the floor to my colleague so I don't keep talking.
Laura Scherer:
Yeah, I would just add to what Aimee says, people have believed weird things for as long as humans have been around. And in fact, there's a book of that title, ‘Why People Believe Weird Things,’ that dates back to the 90s. And I'm sure we could chase back beliefs in weird non-evidence-based ideas for decades and decades. Right back to cowpox and beyond that, of course. So people have always believed in health phenomena that aren't evidence-based. That's something that will always be true into the future as well.
I do think that the influence of health information that's not evidence-based has become worse, and I would agree that it's because of social media. If you look back in time, pre-internet, pre-social media, the way that a conspiracy theory, for example, would spread, a conspiracy theory about the moon landing, about 9/11, would be some person who was really passionate about their oddball idea and would somehow get enough money to make a documentary and then somehow get enough money to maybe put that in a Blockbuster video where people could rent it. The information chains were extremely slow and now opening it up to everyone, people who share these beliefs can connect with each other and feed off of each other, and it makes it a much bigger issue than it ever has been before.
Aimee Bernard:
I agree. I will add to that. I think that when you look at some of these people that believe certain things like flat Earth or that vaccines are harmful, it's a group of people who think the same. They are embraced, they are welcomed. In science, we don't necessarily do that to the same extent, I think, although I would like for us to do that. But I watched a very interesting documentary on flat-Earthers. I think it's called ‘Beyond the Curve.’
Laura Scherer:
I saw it too. Great.
Aimee Bernard:
And it's a welcoming group. They felt like they were part of a group, they felt like they belonged. It's a community. There were even a couple of them that were starting to think that the Earth was round.
Laura Scherer:
Right?
Aimee Bernard:
I know. And they didn't want to tell anyone because they didn't want to be kicked out of the group. They felt community. They were leaders. I feel like that's something also when you get into the bubbles on social media, you're welcomed into those communities. And I would like to, as a scientist, also welcome people into my community and I would talk to them and encourage them to go into science as well. But I don't know that we ... I think that's something that social media and things like that can do very well with people is make them feel like they're part of a community and that they're part of this groupthink. A group of people.
Laura Scherer:
And that's actually problematic in and of itself, because when you get a group identity that's based around an ideology or a set of beliefs, it's really difficult for people to then question those beliefs, because it's not just the belief, it's your social connections, it's your social network, it's all of your friends, maybe your family too. And that makes it really, really difficult to question those ideologies.
Carie Behounek:
Well, and there's a common criticism of academia's ivory tower anyway, and a lot of our research is published behind a paywall, and it's largely inaccessible to someone who doesn't have a degree in science. I know as a content writer here, it takes me a long time to be able to position the things coming out of a university in a way that the average person can understand. So do you think this inaccessibility is contributing to the problem of misinformation?
Aimee Bernard:
100%.
Laura Scherer:
Uh-huh. Yes. Absolutely.
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah, I know that recently at this campus here, we have six basic science departments, and I was hired for a little portion of my FTE to help the faculty in those departments communicate their science in ways that are understandable and relatable to the general public. One barrier is jargon. And we use it because it's so concise and it's efficient –
Laura Scherer:
We're trained to use it.
Aimee Bernard:
And we're trained to use it and it makes us – to our people above us – they know that we know what we're talking about, so it's all professional. But the other barrier, like you said, is the paywall. Even if people could pay 50 bucks for one paper, which I wouldn't even do that, from a journal, then the barrier then is language. I've been working with faculty in these six basic science departments to communicate their science with no jargon. Sometimes we butt heads because I'll be like, "Nope, can't use that word. I'm sorry, that word is not in your vocabulary for the general public."
But we've created a website that is through the CU Anschutz that's for the basic science that is written specifically for the general public. And, actually, Chris has been helping to get some of that information out in the CU Anschutz Today newsletter.
But that's one thing that I think scientists don't understand. If you don't communicate your science ... your article is not completely published and out there, you put it in a journal, that's fine, but I don't think we should stop there. We need to have a summary for the general public that's not behind a paywall that contains no jargon that is available to anyone like my crazy uncle. My grandma.
Chris Casey:
You have a crazy uncle?
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah, I know.
Laura Scherer:
And it's not just the abstract of the article – it is written for the general public.
Aimee Bernard:
No. Not the abstract, the whole ... write a summary of it. I think that is something we should strive towards that would be just amazing if we started to do that.
Laura Scherer:
I completely agree, and I want to take this one step further. And that is that we have a big problem with predatory journals that are publishing just crap and putting it out there. And those articles, they're not peer-reviewed, they're paid to publish, and they are oftentimes just gibberish and they're not behind paywalls. I did a personal little experiment once and I thought, can I find evidence that cherry juice, that I like to put in a drink sometimes just to flavor it up, can I find evidence that this could cure cancer? And I got on Google Scholar. So if you're savvy enough, you have just enough knowledge to get on Google Scholar to start using search terms, could you find evidence that tart cherry juice could cure cancer? And sure enough, you can find just stuff out there. And I'm a scientist, so I'm reasonably familiar with which journals are predatory and which journals are legitimate. And there was a lot of just predatory journal publications that just could potentially support that theory.
Not only do we have the good peer-reviewed science behind paywalls, but we have predatory journals just putting lots of stuff out there that's not peer-reviewed and not high-quality science that people could potentially have access to if they're motivated enough to try to do their own research.
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah. And I see when people often are stating on social media things that they're claiming are true, but I know it's mis- or disinformation, often it is if they refer to the literature, it's a predatory journal that's not peer-reviewed. The other thing people do too is pre-prints.
Laura Scherer:
Yeah, pre-prints.
Aimee Bernard:
The pre-prints that have not been peer-reviewed. And this is something I talk about a lot as well. A pre-print is also not peer-reviewed. It's submitted to this open access pre-print journal, but they all have to go under peer review. Not all of them are going to actually make it into the literature. A pre-print is also not a legit source, even though it may seem more legit. And there has recently been a lot of pre-prints. I actually see, when I testify at the Colorado Capitol for pro-science, pro-vaccine or pro-public health legislation, I will read the bills and their references are often predatory or pre-prints.
Laura Scherer:
Oh my god.
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah.
Laura Scherer:
Great.
Aimee Bernard:
But these are not people who are scientists that are writing the bills.
Laura Scherer:
And that's a huge problem.
Aimee Bernard:
I know.
Laura Scherer:
And this is, I think, the proliferation of massive amounts of information, much of which is just not good valid science. And then policymakers who cannot tell the difference. That is a huge –
Aimee Bernard:
Oh, it's out there. They're like, "It's out there."
Laura Scherer:
Right.
Carie Behounek:
Yeah.
Laura Scherer:
I think that's a huge part of the problem. I started by saying people have always believed weird things about health, and that will always be true into the future. But now it's so hard to tell the difference between valid science and a predatory journal or pre-print that's not been peer reviewed or just junk that's out there. And when policymakers start to fall prey to those sorts of informational gobbledygook issues, that's, I think, where as a society we start to really steer wrong.
Carie Behounek:
Yeah. And can you talk a little bit about what it means to be evidence-based and what peer review actually is? For those of us who haven't participated in the scientific process.
Aimee Bernard:
Mm-hmm.
Laura Scherer:
I would be happy to go first, although I have to say that peer review is not perfect. But here's what peer review is. If you are a scientist, you do a research project, usually it's one that you're really passionate about, you have a scientific finding that is worth reporting. You write it up, you send it to a scientific journal, and the first scientific journal you send it to, they say, "No, we're not interested in something." I'll go, "Okay, fine. I guess it wasn't the right fit for this journal." So then you say, "Well, maybe it would be a good fit for another journal." And they say, "Oh yeah, this one is actually of interest to us and we're going to send it out to some peer reviewers."
And it's usually three to five people who review a journal article and they will give you just the hardest-hitting criticism, hopefully, that you can imagine. They're going to try to tear your paper apart and that's their job as peer reviewers. And then you have to respond to it. If you can't respond to their critiques adequately, then your paper will not get published in the journal. The editor will say, "Nope, peer reviewers said that this is not good." And, by the way, oftentimes, this is all done anonymously, so we don't know who is reviewing our manuscript and the people reviewing it don't know who we are. And that's the purpose of that anonymous reviewing is to reduce any form of bias, people knowing each other and doing each other favors ... that kind of negative stuff.
Carie Behounek:
Yeah, yeah.
Laura Scherer:
Yeah, that is essentially a peer review. But I do want to say, I started out with a caveat that peer review is not perfect. Reviewers miss stuff. So it is possible that a scientific finding can get into the literature. It's not perfect, has some really important caveat or something, but then the whole point of science is that then some other researcher will say, "Hey, there's a flaw with this paper. We're going to do a replication. We're going to do more research, and we're going to see if this finding holds once we address the flaws." And that's the process of science.
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah. And with a peer review, it should be experts in the field. So someone who knows that inside and out, that's what they do also. So if you're in a tiny field, you probably might know who the peer reviewers are.
Laura Scherer:
Maybe.
Aimee Bernard:
But if you're in a bigger field ... I will say, to add onto that, we all know that in 1998, there was a paper published in The Lancet that has since been retracted because that was essentially a case study. It was found to be fraudulent. There was monetary ties, there was money to be made if the MMR was taken down or out of commission. There were so many pieces to that. That is an instance of where I think the peer review failed us, because we said it's not a perfect process. There was no clear definitive connection, scientifically, molecularly, cellularly to what they had said in the paper.
Chris Casey:
And if I could just interject quick, Aimee, wasn't that a connection of a vaccine to autism? Am I correct?
Aimee Bernard:
That was the claim.
Chris Casey:
That was the claim.
Aimee Bernard:
That was the claim. But since that time and since no one else found that, it was retracted. There have now been tens of studies, millions of kids ... and I actually just posted this in Substack yesterday with Unbiased Science. We did a whole review of all the MMR studies and vaccines and how that absolutely zero link has been found to autism. But that's the example of where I think peer review failed us. But then over time, I would say too much time in my opinion.
Laura Scherer:
Too much time and too much money, I would say.
Aimee Bernard:
And too much money. But it eventually did get retracted.
Laura Scherer:
I want to just reinforce the money aspect of this. So that one moment of faulty peer review with a paper that was ultimately retracted led to a widespread belief that vaccines cause autism, that then had to be refuted with or tested, I should say, people wanted to know if it was true. So they're not going into it thinking they're going to refute it, but a lot of scientists say, "Well, is this link real? Let's go test it." Millions of dollars later, we find no evidence that vaccines cause autism. And yet still we do have people who are saying, "No, we need more research, more millions of dollars." And this is in the context of course, of wanting to cut funding for research, but I don't know, I guess we're going to spend millions of dollars more trying to root out this causal effect.
Aimee Bernard:
Right. Instead of putting money towards maybe other things that are more pressing and also embracing neurodiversity.
Laura Scherer:
Yeah. And maybe also trying to research other potential causes of autism.
Carie Behounek:
Right.
Aimee Bernard:
Right. Yeah, no, that would be –
Laura Scherer:
Like finding out what actually causes autism would be great.
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah, wouldn't that be.
Carie Behounek:
Well, and I think that brings up what you said at the beginning, the fear and uncertainty. So I belong to moms groups, I'm a mom, and there's a lot of fear out there and there's a lot of uncertainty. And yes, something casts doubt on something and it's easy to just glob onto that information and go with it. So how can the scientific community really embrace the fact that there are a lot of people who are scared right now, and that fear and uncertainty is driving them to seek answers in those places that might not necessarily be true?
Laura Scherer:
I think that in science, also an underlying principle, is uncertainty. We're trying to close the gap on uncertainty and get less and less and less of it. But there are always going to be cases in medicine where we don't have the answer, where we don't necessarily know exactly what's wrong with you and what's causing your symptoms. And that can be really, really frustrating for people. And the lucky ones in that situation eventually do get a diagnosis, but there are other people who don't and they can't figure it out.
So one of the things that I like to think about in these sorts of situations is that maybe there's something that feels like it helps you, it doesn't break your bank and it's not hurting you, I guess, try it. Right? And I don't think that there should be necessarily negative attitudes towards that. So if you want to cut out gluten and there's no evidence that gluten is the thing that is causing your symptoms, but also it doesn't really harm you all that much to cut out gluten is not breaking the –
Carie Behounek:
It does not. I cut out gluten about 10 years ago. It does not harm.
Laura Scherer:
Yeah, basically if it's not causing harm, it's not breaking the bank, then go ahead and try it. And if it works for you, then that's great. And if there's no scientific evidence for it, maybe because nobody has done that research yet, then that's maybe how you fill that uncertainty gap. Where I get worried for people is when there is an evidence-based solution to their problem and they say no to the evidence-based solution, I'm going to go over here and I'm going to buy a whole bunch of supplements or do something that costs me a lot of money and that potentially has harm to my body instead of going for the evidence-based solution. Those are the people that I worry about.
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah, there's a movie or maybe documentary or series called Apple Cider Vinegar that just came out that was really interesting, that is a wellness influencer who made up the fact that she had brain cancer. She did not. And she said it was cured by healthy diet and lifestyle. And then sadly, many people who had cancer followed her and ultimately did not choose evidence-based medicine and passed away. So there definitely can be harm.
But I agree with you, if something is not harmful, it's not causing you to lose all of your money and you think it works, that's great.
To answer your question as far as what can we do, I think science needs to get out there more. I think we need to be, without jargon, beyond paywalls, we need to have more community science events. TED Talks are really cool, but you have to get tickets far in advance. It's hard to do. Let's just have these every week, some auditoriums, fill them up. Hopefully people would come. Wouldn't it be awesome if instead of people going to watch baseball, we'd have scientists on the home plate talking about science?
Laura Scherer:
That's an interesting idea.
Aimee Bernard:
How awesome would that be?
Laura Scherer:
Mixing baseball and science. Basketball and science.
Aimee Bernard:
But like we do ... there's science-on-tap at bars. Why can't we have things like that where science becomes more part of the community or part of what we do? Because I think getting science out there and having scientists speak to people ... and that Meet the Scientist column that, Chris, you and I have been working on where people are learning about scientists here at Anschutz in understandable jargon-free ways, it's making scientists appear to be humans and relatable with what they do. I think that's something we need to be better at. And I would encourage CU Anschutz to embrace some kind of cool and innovative ways to get scientists out there more.
Laura Scherer:
Yeah. We did a study a little while back, this is a number of years ago now, we were trying to figure out how to communicate science in ways that seemed more authentic. And what we found was that when scientists tell the story of their work, it seemed more authentic. And also we found something really interesting, and that was the origin story. Why are you as a scientist interested in this? What happened that made you want to do this research? That caused the scientists to seem more authentic as well. So telling stories about the research now and also where it came from, these can help scientists to communicate more authentically.
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah, no, I agree. When I teach the med students and PA students and dental students and grad students, immunology here, and I will tell all of them, I went into immunology and I specialized in autoimmunity because my mom is Type 1 diabetic. So I was always wondering why did her immune system turn on itself and kill all of her insulin-producing beta cells? Sadly, we still don't know. But I think hearing why people are invested or interested, I think can be eye-opening and like, wow, that's really interesting.
Carie Behounek:
Right. Yeah, that's definitely the best part of Chris and I's jobs that we get to listen to your stories and then tell your stories, and that's good news for us. Maybe some job security for you and I, Chris.
Aimee Bernard:
Maybe.
Chris Casey:
Well storytelling, it triggers an emotional response. I think that's why people respond to anecdotes, because there's something in there that's relatable and it hits their emotions and then they latch on. I think it's integral for folks like us who are trying to translate the research that's happening to, if we can, open that emotional gateway somehow and make every chance, take every chance possible to make these stories relatable on a personal level to the reader, to the audience.
That's part of why we launched a podcast like this, to capture people where they live. They often get their information now over podcasts rather than reading. And this is another mode that is a gateway of storytelling that is a way to convey information and hopefully make it something they can relate to and take away in their personal lives. And I find it inspiring, like you are doing, Aimee, in terms of training the next generation of healthcare professionals, getting them when they're in their educational training years and instilling in them the importance of this communication aspect, because they are going into fields that are highly technical, as we've discussed, heavily filled with jargon. And for those folks to connect with the general public, they need translation skills.
Carie Behounek:
Yes. I received a post-it note with SLE written on it, systemic lupus-
Aimee Bernard:
Erythematosus.
Carie Behounek:
Yes. Thank you for saying that for me. I still can't say it after ... and was told by my ... and my rheumatologist is a wonderful man, and we have a really great connection. But that was my first contact point with it. It was a blue post-it note with those words, an undifferentiated connective tissue disorder and anti-phospholipid antibodies. And those are written on a post-it note and I got sent out into the world with my Google skills.
Aimee Bernard:
Wow.
Carie Behounek:
Yeah, yeah.
Aimee Bernard:
I wish you would've called me.
Carie Behounek:
I wish I would have, too. I'm so glad to know you now and to know that I don't have lupus.
Aimee Bernard:
Even better.
Carie Behounek:
Yeah.
Aimee Bernard:
Well, the one thing that I would like to encourage this campus also to do is, so I co-direct with Wendy Meyer at the CCTSI, the Communicating Your Science to the Public workshop series. It's just three afternoons. Faculty, trainees, whoever wants to sign up, essentially. We only run it a couple times a year. I would like it to be required in the curriculum for med school and required for PA students. And even more, the grad students, the PhD candidates. Med students get a little bit, they train their skills sometimes in real time in the clinic when they're talking to people that don't have science. It doesn't mean that they're going to be great at it, but they get a little bit more practice.
But I think having science communication curriculum that's required within our early training and then maybe some of our seasoned faculty that haven't had it, they would also benefit from things like that, because I think that if we can train people moving forward to have those skills, this is going to probably decrease this problem, I think a little bit. It will definitely not eliminate it, but I think it would help.
Laura Scherer:
Yeah. And I work with doctors in communicating through, we develop decision-aid materials in our research groups. So for people facing important medical decisions, we want to give them the information that they need. And then maybe doctors don't have time to give them, and it's something that they can take home and hold in their hands and that can give them information about the medical decision that they're facing. MDs are just given a lot of training, and by the time that you get done with all that medical training, doctors take a lot of pride in their expertise.
Aimee Bernard:
Yes.
Laura Scherer:
And when somebody comes into their office and they say, "I just don't believe what you're telling me." That is an affront to all of those years of training.
Aimee Bernard:
25 years.
Laura Scherer:
And I think that it can be really an affront to all of that training, all that expense, all of those nights up studying and residency and everything that they suffered through to get to where they are today. So I agree with you that some scientific training is important for MDs to understand why it is that people come to them and they question. And then what to do when their patients are questioning. How to navigate that gracefully and understand that they're not trying to offend you and all of your expertise. They're just trying to get answers. And they're a patient and they're wondering and they're confused and they're scared.
Aimee Bernard:
And they're sick.
Laura Scherer:
And they're sick.
Aimee Bernard:
Life has changed significantly.
Laura Scherer:
And even with all that medical training, you might not have the answer for them that's really satisfying because it might be a complex medical problem.
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah, I agree. I think that's important to think about. And I often think about things that I'm not an expert in. When I take my car to the mechanic. They'll tell me that I need thousands of dollars in certain things –
Laura Scherer:
And you go, "What?"
Aimee Bernard:
And I'm like, "Well, what is wrong with it? And how do you know?"
Carie Behounek:
Yes.
Aimee Bernard:
Prove to me that I need to pay $5,000 for this.
Carie Behounek:
I know.
Aimee Bernard:
And then I'm like, "OK, calm down. I am an immunologist. This person is a mechanic. I'm hoping that they are not trying to ... they know how to fix my car." I just should back up and be like, "You are the expert. Please fix my car."
Laura Scherer:
Right.
Chris Casey:
Well we've spent a good deal of time here talking about the problems of the information ecosystem, the fragmented nature. How everybody gravitates toward their own filter bubbles or echo chambers and the importance of translating science to the layperson and making them interested in evidence-based science. Is there any takeaway you can offer, just like we're getting towards summer, people are going to have barbecues and they'll just get with their families more often, maybe travels, visit families, and these kinds of things will pop up. Do you have any suggestions for folks as to how to – when a topic you just know that they're just grossly perhaps misinformed on something related to their health or science in general – what's a good way to interact in that?
Laura Scherer:
Definitely don't attack them. Negativity will always be met with more negativity and defensiveness. That's obvious, and a lot of people will then not do that, but they'll try to broach the topic more carefully. I think you have to judge those moments really carefully. Is this a moment where I can bring some nuance to the table and bring some evidence to the table? Well, actually, would you be interested in knowing what I know about this? Because actually I've read a lot about it and I have received a lot of training in this area, so if you're interested in knowing more, I can tell you more. And then if they take that and are receptive, then that gives you an opening to tell them what you know.
And it's also really important to be appropriately hedging and tell people about the nuance. If you meet a vaccine skeptic with, "Vaccines are safe and effective. Vaccines are safe and effective." That's not going to work. It's not giving them what they need. You need to be more nuanced. I'll give Aimee a minute here, but I want to tell you about a really cool study that just came out in Science that used AI to try to debunk conspiracy theories.
Aimee Bernard:
Ooh, fun.
Chris Casey:
I was wondering if AI would come up at some point.
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah.
Laura Scherer:
Here's our AI segment.
Chris Casey:
OK.
Laura Scherer:
This study that came out in Science used AI to debunk conspiracy theories. Now, conspiracy theories aren't the same as health misinformation, but the same principles apply. So what they had people do is write into an AI chatbot what the conspiracy theory was that they believed, and then the AI chatbot would essentially have a little argument with them. And they found that this was better than humans at debunking conspiracy belief.
And the reason why they think is that AI was able to come up with evidence-based arguments that were tailored to the specific concerns and beliefs of the conspiracy theorists that the AI was interacting with. And it had just a wealth of information that it could bring up and bring receipts too. Here's a citation for the thing that I'm saying.
All that is to say that people can be swayed by evidence-based arguments. It's possible that you as an individual might not have the evidence that they need in that moment to be swayed. And that's just something that I think you’ve got to accept. Don't let it get into a deep-heated argument because that's just never going to work. And those conversations are always tipping on the edge of a disagreement.
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah, so I would echo what Laura said. You need to ask for permission, I think, to see if it's a conversation ... that it's going to be a two-way conversation rather than just a one-way telling someone something. I'll often say, "I hear your concerns about vaccines. If I wasn't an immunologist, I would also have question or have concerns. But as an immunologist for over 20 years, I'm vaccinated. My kids are vaccinated. My pets are vaccinated. Is there anything that I can help you with? Can we have a conversation about the questions that you have? And I'll share with you what I know."
And then often, I go into it. I would love for people to get vaccinated, but I say, "Whatever you choose, it's up to you. This is just your choice. I'm giving you the information that I have. I'm not here to change your mind today."
And I will have conversations with you for the next 10 years if you would like because –
Laura Scherer:
And we can still be friends, even though we disagree.
Aimee Bernard:
Right. It's a marathon. I was part of a tae-kwon-do studio. I did this with my kids for about 10 years. I just retired two years ago when my kids went to college, I retired because they weren't going with me anymore. But the head of our studio was a chiropractor. And love him, love his family. He doesn't vaccinate as a chiropractor. During the COVID pandemic, he sat in on some Zoom webinars, asked me a lot of questions. The first time he ever got vaccinated was the COVID vaccine, and he has had doses since then.
And it's so funny, and I love him and his family, and we're invited to baby showers. We're part of the family. And he's like, "Oh, yeah, I tell my friends now, you should get the COVID vaccine."
Laura Scherer:
Yeah, that's great.
Aimee Bernard:
I was like, "Wow. You do?" I was like, I need a badge. But that's the kind of thing. We had conversations about that for years, even before COVID, because I was like, "Come on, tell me what are your concerns? I just need to know, this is my field. This is what I do for a living. I just want to talk to you." So it was a marathon. And you have to be patient and you can't be condescending, and you have to ask for permission and share evidence when you can or when they're open to it.
Laura Scherer:
And maintain a positive relationship with him.
Aimee Bernard:
Yes, exactly.
Laura Scherer:
You can agree or disagree on this one thing and maintain your friendship.
Aimee Bernard:
Right. Even when he was still not going to, I still loved him and his family, went to the studio, sweated with them. It's important, I think, to have those one-on-one conversations. And I would say one other thing is we need to engage in conversation.
I think a lot of people are afraid of conversations. Oh, it's too political, or it's too this, or that will start a war. It's like, well, it will only start a war if you make it start a war. If you stay positive, if you maintain respect, if you ask to share, having conversation is what we need to continue to do. And I think a lot of people have to start to do that. I've had conversations with crazy uncle who tells me, "Well, all my friends think COVID is not real." I'm like, "Well, so what are your thoughts? So what are you thinking?"
And then that starts a conversation. I think having those instead of shying away, we have to get better at having the conversation and engaging. And one last thing I would say is, a lot of my colleagues think that engaging in social media is a waste of time, and I disagree. And the reason why is because that is where ... I think there was a recent study that 65% of people below 30 get their news from social media. So the more science platforms, the more science we have on there, I think that the more opportunity there is to see real evidence-based science being promoted on social media.
Laura Scherer:
Can I tell you something cool from the psychology literature related to that?
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah, please. Yeah.
Laura Scherer:
OK. So it turns out that some people share things on social media and don't even think about whether or not they're true or false. I've been in science for a long time and I'm really invested in whether or not things are true or false or I want to test it and I really want to scrutinize ideas. And that's just the way that I think. I'm very analytical. Not everybody's like that.
Aimee Bernard:
No. And that's totally OK.
Laura Scherer:
A lot of us are very emotional and we want to share our outrage. I had a really great exchange with a relative of mine on social media. She shared something. This is an alternative medicine kind of person. So she shares a lot of stuff, and some of it she believes in. One time she shared something just really egregious. And I said, "Hey, you know that's wrong." In the gentlest way that I could. She said, "Oh, well, I was just sharing it because I thought it was interesting." And that's why some people share things on social media. They think it's interesting. And because of this, if you just nudge people to think about the accuracy of the things that they're sharing that can actually get people to share more accurate stuff.
Because they're oftentimes going around going, "Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, that's kind of interesting too." And not really thinking, "Wait, but is this actually true?" So if you can nudge people towards that frame of mind of, is this true what I'm reading? Is this a good source? Is this accurate? Then you can get more sharing of accurate information and less sharing of false information.
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah, I agree. I agree. Nudging people that way. Or just saying ... I've done this on social media. I'll write in the comment, "Hey, I saw this too. I'm just curious if this is real? It kind of looks like it might be –
Laura Scherer:
Be fake, maybe.
Aimee Bernard:
... a little bit misleading. I'll just put something very gentle and subtle, but my underlying theme is, "This is wrong."
Chris Casey:
But you do it very non-confrontationally.
Carie Behounek:
Yeah.
Aimee Bernard:
It's like, "Hey, I saw that too. I thought it was interesting, but I was reluctant to share this because it looks like it might be fake or misleading. I wonder what the original source of this was."
Laura Scherer:
Yeah.
Aimee Bernard:
And then sometimes that can lead people to be like, "Oh yeah, I didn't think about that."
Carie Behounek:
Right.
Aimee Bernard:
This comes from so-and-so's website that's maybe sitting in somebody's basement. Right?
Laura Scherer:
I know.
Carie Behounek:
Well, along that same line, can you go on as to what we can tell our listeners when they come across health information, what should they be looking for?
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah, so a couple things. I wrote an op-ed actually in the St. Paul Pioneer Press back in September of 2022. It was in response to this tiny little thing. I'm from Minnesota, so the St. Paul Pioneer Press is my hometown newspaper. And it was about how COVID vaccines were harmful and blah blah. It was in this little letter to the editor. Like a sentence or a couple sentences. I wrote a scathing letter to the editor, and he's like, "Well, let's use this as an opportunity to teach people." Well, he did this ... a whole page. I wrote a whole page. But it boils down to what I said was, check the author, is the person an expert? Check the source? Is it like The Onion, which we know is satirical. Or the Borowitz Report, which some people believe is real, but that's also satirical. Or is it a science journal or coming from an expert? Also look at the references. Is it predatory? Peer review?
And then the thing that I think you mentioned, emotion. Does it give you strong emotion? Are you outraged? Are you fearful? Scared? Is there some emotion? And what I kind of joke is that most of the time, evidence-based science –
Laura Scherer:
Is a little boring, maybe? A little nuanced?
Aimee Bernard:
It may be boring, it may not. It's probably not going to cause strong emotion.
Laura Scherer:
Right.
Aimee Bernard:
And what would you add to that? Anything?
Laura Scherer:
Yeah. Well, I wanted to mention that there was a really huge study that was just, I think it's under peer review right now, so this is you're getting ahead of the evidence, but a huge study involving over 30,000 people internationally. And they wanted to test different strategies for interventions that reduce people's susceptibility to misinformation about health and other topics as well.
And they found that the media literacy intervention, which is very much what you're describing, I think, was one of the most effective interventions. That, and an accuracy nudge was also effective. So you just tell people, "Hey, think about whether or not this is accurate." And then beyond that, "Here are some things to look for. Here's some media literacy tips that we can give you that will help you look for and identify misinformation."
And these are things like, I have them written right here, so I can tell you. Be skeptical of headlines, especially if they're really catchy and really outrageous.
Aimee Bernard:
Clickbait.
Laura Scherer:
Yeah, clickbait. Absolutely. Consider the source and whether it's published, I think you already said this, on a reputable website. Watch for unusual formatting. So sometimes misinformation has weird formatting and sometimes also misspellings.
Aimee Bernard:
Oh, yes, typos.
Laura Scherer:
Typos galore. Similarly with photos. Although AI-generated photos, images are getting even better. But oftentimes, fake news stories will have weird-looking photos that were formatted strangely. But also then additionally, think about why the story might have been shared or written in the first place. Is this trying to really persuade you and make you angry and outraged? Getting at that outrage again. And then look at the website domain. I think you maybe said that also. And that's getting back to the source. And then also, is this story just a joke?
Aimee Bernard:
Is it satirical?
Laura Scherer:
Right.
Aimee Bernard:
The Onion is very good at it.
Laura Scherer:
Yeah, right. Because sometimes misinformation will spread because somebody made a joke that a lot of people took seriously.
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah.
Chris Casey:
Well, this was a lot of fun. I could talk with you two about this all day. I think it's cool, just the scope of what you both have covered here in terms of this problem today. It really sheds light on the breadth and scope of this problem, the complexity of this problem. There's so much nuance to it, and it's going to require a lot of creative solutions. I'm encouraged to hear there's some creative solutions happening on our campus with training the upcoming healthcare professionals on the idea of storytelling or just communicating their research to the general public. I think it's fantastic that there are things like that happening.
Anyway, I don't know about you, Carie, but yeah, I could go on about this for a good long time. But in the interest of brevity and our listeners’ time, we'll have to cut it here, I'd say.
Carie Behounek:
Yeah, I think so too. And I do love, I am a nerd about storytelling. I'm not a scientist, but I am really into the science of storytelling. And again, you're just making me feel like I have some value in this space as a storyteller.
Laura Scherer:
Yes. Yes.
Aimee Bernard:
Absolutely.
Carie Behounek:
Yeah. So thank you so much. This was wonderful.
Aimee Bernard:
Yeah. Thank you.
Chris Casey:
Thank you both.
Laura Scherer:
Thanks.
