The weaponization of doubt, attacks on American science

Deseret News
We hear a lot of talk these days about how truth is threatened in the age of misinformation. I understand that misinformation is a terrible problem, and that it has downstream effects on science, trust, institutions, our society and just about everything else that we care about. But I think the real culprit is properly labeled not as misinformation but disinformation.

Let me explain.

Misinformation is a mistake. It is when we say that some falsehood is true when it is not, but this happened by accident. Say I am out walking my dogs and a passing car stops and asks for directions to Boston. I say, “Go down three blocks, make a left and get on Beacon Street. That’ll take you straight to Boston.” Easy enough and the person happily pulls away. Then, to my mortification, I realize that I’m not where I thought I was and I’ve told him to go exactly the wrong way. I said to make a left on Beacon, when I should have said right. Now he’s going to be headed out to Wellesley and — if he keeps going — eventually the New York border. I made a mistake but it wasn’t malicious. That’s misinformation.

Now imagine, by contrast, that I intentionally wanted to misdirect someone, because I had a gang of friends who were waiting to carjack a Mercedes, and I took this opportunity to give the motorist directions that would lead him directly to them, so that they could take his car, chop it up and sell it for parts. In this case, perhaps I might also have told him to go left rather than right, but now it is disinformation. I did it on purpose. I did it because it served my interests for the motorist to believe a falsehood. And this is where the whole thing is relevant for science. MORE