13 March 2017
How to counter alternative "facts"
Over the last year, facts have taken a bit of a beating. Oxford Dictionaries added insult to injury when it named “post-truth” the 2016 word of the year. In early 2017, the phrase “alternative facts” entered public discourse, when US presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway used it on air to describe falsehoods the White House press secretary had told about the number of people who watched Donald Trump’s inauguration.
But misinformation is not a recent phenomenon. Back in 2014, the World Economic Forum listed “the rapid spread of misinformation online” as one of ten major trends affecting world events. For those of us already engaged with the issue of climate change, “post-truth” and “alternative facts” have a distinct ring of familiarity. Climate scientists have wrestled with false purported “facts” about climate change for decades. And it turns out that those who reject the scientific consensus on climate change possess many of the same traits as those who embrace post-truthism and alternative “facts” on other issues, including conspiratorial thinking and incoherent worldviews.
http://thebulletin.org/how-counter-alternative-facts10612
