Protecting yourself and others from scientific and medical misinformation
Speaker: Professor in Practice Greg Tucker-Kellogg
Synopsis: Misinformation comes in many guises, but scientific and medical misinformation directly threatens human health. We see the consequences of misinformation in examples around the world, including measles outbreaks, lowered vaccine uptake, and on occasion in dangerous public policies. How can we know who to trust? In science and medicine, can we distinguish misinformation from credible information? This talk will examine two approaches to this problem: “debunking” misinformation when we encounter it and inoculating ourselves against (“prebunking”) misinformation in advance.