The Misinformation Trap and Changing Minds

There is much discussion about how divided we are in the US. How we get our news from different sources so that we don’t even live in a shared reality. How can we begin to talk to each other?

The Humanist Society of Santa Barbara recently hosted a talk “The Misinformation Trap and Changing Minds: My Journey from Creationist to Biologist” by Melanie Trecek-King. The event was co-sponsored with the Freethought Society.

From her LinkedIn page, Melanie Trecek-King is a science educator/communicator and the creator of “Thinking Is Power”, an online resource that teaches critical thinking, information literacy, and science literacy skills.

Trecek-King is an Associate Professor of Biology at Massasoit Community College, where she teaches a general-education science course designed to teach “skills, not facts.”

Melanie Trecek-King began her talk explaining that this topic is personal for her. She grew up as a young Earth creationist. She has been teaching biology for many years. She knows from experience that bringing facts doesn’t necessarily work.

She wanted to tell us what it is like “on the other side”.

She grew up in rural western Iowa. Just 39 in her high school graduating class. It was hard to find people to date; she knew many of them since preschool! Someone would tell your mother whatever you were doing.

Her family owned a diner. Her mother burned it down the first day she owned it. This was the restaurant.

This was her and a photo of the town.

In many ways it was a great place to grow up. The number of bars was the same as the number of churches. It is a joke, but true. The church is the center of the community. The town park has a nativity scene at Christmas, even now.

Kids were sent to church to become good people. Everyone was brought up to be:

• Christian
• Conservative
• Republican

in that order.

They grew up believing that Democrats just want to raise your taxes and take your guns. And they believe in evolution.

The church she attended taught that the Bible is the literal word of God. And God created the world about 6,000 years ago in six days.

Before the Flood, there was a canopy of water above the earth. Everything was perfect. No rain was needed. All animals were herbivores. Everyone lived hundreds of years. The Flood explained the Grand Canyon and fossils.

They also were taught that there was plenty of evidence against evolution:

• No transitional fossils
• Irreducible complexity in organs like the eye
• Radiometric dating was flawed
• Evolution violates the laws of thermodynamics
• Micro evolution is real, but macro evolution is not
• Frauds like Piltdown Man discredit evolution

Worse, evolution comes from the devil. It is a conspiracy. Life is too perfect to be random. Evolution has never been observed. So it requires faith. And of course, if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? And evolution is “just a theory”.

Trecek-King wants us to reflect on how we form beliefs. She has empathy for people who fall for misinformation, because she did. We all have biases, emotions, intuitions and use pattern detection. Our inputs are personal experiences and received wisdom.

She talked about “cargo cults” that formed during WWII. Military aircraft would land on remote Pacific islands like Vanuatu. Amazing goods would come from these alien craft. The local cultures developed the idea that they could bring forth more cargo through various rituals involving US flags, blue jeans and bamboo guns.

Some of these cargo cults are still waiting after 90 years. Notably on “John Frum” day on February 15. This may seem silly until it is compared to Christians who are still waiting for Jesus to return after more than 2000 years.

We live in a sea of trust. We become confident we are right. It is a feeling. Overconfidence is a barrier to learning.

She contrasted two possible systems for how we come to believe things. One is the Information Deficit model. The other is the Web of Belief model of Quine.

You interpret through your web. It is uncomfortable to have an inconsistent web. Consider a student who doesn’t accept evolution. You can’t pull out one node. It must be replaced by something else.

She went on to talk about the Elephant and the Rider. We are riding the elephant and think we are in charge. But maybe it is the elephant that really is in charge. Being smart makes us better at rationalizing what we already want to believe.

Peanut butter ice cream is her weakness. Her elephant really wants it. She finds excuses for eating it. Perhaps a reward for something she has done.

Trecek-King went on to distinguish between misinformation and disinformation. Disinformation is deliberate. She advises against using the term unless you are sure of the intent.

In the community she grew up in, believing in evolution meant losing being a part of the community.

She noted that it is nearly impossible that all of our beliefs are true. The focus of her talk would be science misinformation. And there are two forms this takes:

Pseudoscience: Pretends to be scientific, but it doesn’t follow the proper process. This includes homeopathy and astrology.

Science Denial: Refusal to accept well accepted science. Including Climate Crisis denial, evolution denial and anti vaccine fears.

Science misinformation is often tied to motivated reasoning. That is, wanting something to be true regardless of the evidence. This is often the case with Climate Crisis denial. Which is motivated by hatred of government.

The main misinformation technique is to throw out enough confusion and doubt to block action.

In the same way, creationism is motivated by wanting to believe in God.

Pseudoscience and Science Denial are two sides of the same coin and feed on each other.

One root of misinformation: Conspiracies. There is no other way to explain how most scientists agree on climate or on evolution.

At this point Trecek-King paused to give a quiz! She gave us four technical questions involving evolution. She said she took these from her biology class for non majors.

I grew up with a research biologist father and I took Advanced Placement biology in high school. My college lady friend was also a pre-med biology major. I only got two of the four questions correct. In all fairness to me, my failure was more about understanding unfamiliar terms than about failing to understand concepts.

Nevertheless, her point was that even those of us who believe in evolution don’t know as much about it as we may think we do. Belief is largely about trust. Who do you trust?

She returned to her personal story. The Garden of Eden story is about a woman causing sin to exist in the world.

Her town had just 1,400 people. Church roles for women were limited to cooking and cleaning. Her own mother was very strong and colorful. Her mother said women can do anything a man can do except pee standing up. (“She was wrong about the peeing standing up!”)

Trecek-King went on to explain how her own mind changed. She wanted to attend veterinary school. Which included the usual college classes. Including a first course in world civilization.

She learned that different civilizations had different gods. Stable civilizations had peaceful gods. Civilizations in harsh conditions had wrathful gods.

She felt a mushroom cloud explode over her head! “Holy shit! Man created God in his own image!” Her realization was instantaneous and complete.

Her religion had taught her as a woman she was less of a person. She had been prepared to argue against evolution. But she was not prepared for this realization. She started to question everything.

This was before social media, but she knew she had to find a secular community to connect to. She realized they would not be sexist.

She realized that changing beliefs is not about facts. It is about what it implies. If you realize your tribe is wrong, then there is too much to lose.

She went on to say what does not work when it comes to changing beliefs: Telling someone they are stupid. Which led to: How should we talk to people. Which gets back to the elephant and rider and our web of beliefs.

Facts hit a wall of our web of beliefs. Your elephant is talking to their elephant.

She imagined going back to talk to her past self. She wouldn’t talk about evolution. That is too tied to her identity. Instead, she would find the roots of her belief.

“Let’s investigate this together.” She would not lecture her past self. She would not call out her past self. She would call her in.

If you see someone posting something false on social media, private message them rather than publicly shame them.

Misinformation appeals to our elephant. The best defense is self awareness. Be part of a community built on inquiry and kindness.

At this point she ended her talk and invited people to follow and communicate with her on social media. She then took questions and comments.

Rhett also grew up as a young Earth creationist. A lot of parallels with her, but not the small town part.

She answered a question from Christopher at UCSB. She said the first step is to consider if a belief is falsifiable. She noted that most God beliefs are not harmful. But some pseudoscience beliefs are harmful. Such as nonsense beliefs about cancer causes and cures.

Ethan is currently a young Earth creationist. He said that if belief is about tribes, then the same is true for those of us in the pro-evolution tribe.

She said that is a good question and praised him for coming to her talk. She went on to explain that not all communities are the same. Some are organized around trying to understand reality through inquiry. Evolution has been scrutinized more than any other part of biology, for over 150 years.

And these beliefs can be tested. God beliefs cannot be tested. In some cases they can be tested and the evidence is not there.

For example, the Great Flood would have left specific traces that simply don’t exist. And even if that evidence existed, it could not be tied to be caused by God.

Rhett noted that many evolution believers also believe in God. Evolution doesn’t disprove God.

Trecek-King agreed, giving Francis Collins as a notable example. He led the Human Genome Project and was director of the National Institutes of Health from 2009 to 2021. Yet he believes in God.

I will note that I saw him give a talk many years ago when he affirmed his God belief and wrote a book about it. His evidence? He realized that altruism could not have evolved, because it means putting others’ interests ahead of one’s own. And that would diminish one’s own chance for survival and passing on one’s genes.

At that moment I had a realization: That one of the most powerful biologists in the world had never heard of Google. This man wrote an entire book without ever doing a search for how evolution and altruism are compatible. Hint: It is not hard to find explanations of how they are compatible.

Etienne said he is living in the Midwest. He said that religion is a vehicle for something else: White supremacy and patriarchy. He is Black. Maybe that is a root issue worth discussing?

Trecek-King agreed, noting that her childhood religion was a cover for sexism. Steve King was a Republican congressman from her district who was censured for his racist comments.

She said that her husband is a Black man. She said that you have no responsibility to fight those battles if you don’t want to.

She said that our core tends to be unfalsifiable. You can argue forever with such beliefs and get nowhere, because you can’t test them.

She said you have to drill down to what we have in common. Most people are good and care about their families, community and other people. Get to talking to their elephant.

Marian talked about the need to build trust with those you disagree with. Find common ground. But she doesn’t know where to start with Trump supporters. Do they really think that is how a president should behave?

Trecek-King suggested asking them how sure they are of their position. Get a numerical value. You can then ask why they aren’t more sure. They then will come up with reasons for their doubt.

How would you feel if you are wrong? Separate beliefs from identity as much as possible. How would you know you are wrong? How would you test it? “Let’s explore together.”

Jeremy is a neuro social psychologist. He suggested asking the other person if they are just willing to listen to what you have to say, without any pressure to change their view.

Trecek-King gave the example of The Dress. People really saw it differently. They are not stupid or evil.

Jeremy noted that after a car crash police might ask many people what they saw and might get many different answers.

Trecek-King noted that it may depend on how the questions are asked.

Dino said that religion serves a purpose for people.

Trecek-King agreed you don’t have to take belief from your grandmother. Many of these beliefs are not harmful. There are other battles to fight.

Rhett noted that the Unitarians are a welcoming community for those who leave a more conservative church community.

For more information about upcoming events with the Humanist Society of Santa Barbara or to become a member, please go to https://www.sbhumanists.org/