Adam Kucharski

So I gave a talk earlier this year and it got posted on YouTube.

It had conspiracy theories in it and there was a lot of

conspiracy uh theory supporters who sort of piled in the comments and one of the points they made is skepticism is good you know it's the kind of world society take no one's word for it you need this you know the this is we're the ones that are kind of doing science and people who just assume that that science is settled are in the wrong so and and again you also mentioned that repetition i mean there's this um

phenomenon it's kind of the illusory uh illusory truth problem that if you repeatedly tell someone someone's something's false it will increase their belief in it even if it's something quite outrageous and that mimics that scientific repetition because people kind of say okay but if i've heard it again and again it's almost like if you treat these as mini experiments i'm just accumulating evidence that that this thing is true so it's made me think like a lot about how you've got essentially a lot of mimicry of the scientific method of you know

amount of data and how you present it and you know this kind of skepticism being good but i think a lot of it comes down to you know it as well as just looking for these logical flaws but also ability to be wrong you know in in not actually seeking out things that confirm i think all of us you know it's something i've certainly tried to do a lot working on

emergencies and one of the scientific advisory groups that I worked on almost it became a catchphrase whenever someone presented something they finished by saying tell me why I'm wrong you know and like if you've got a variant that's more transmissible I don't want to be right about that you know really and it's something that is quite hard to do and I found it particularly for something that's quite high pressure

Trying to get a policymaker or someone to write, even just non-publicly by themselves, write down what you think is going to happen or write down what would convince you that you're wrong about something.

I think particularly on contentious issues where someone's got perhaps a lot of public persona wrapped up in something, that's really hard to do.

But I think it's those kind of elements that distinguish between

Kind of getting sucked into a conspiracy theory and really seeking out evidence that supports it and trying to just get your theory stronger and stronger.

And actually seeking out things that might overturn your belief about the world.

And it's often those things that we don't want overturned.

I think those are the views that we all have politically or in other ways.

And that's often where the problems lie.

Thanks.

And as much as I appreciate it, it was not an easy book to write.

I think at times I kind of wondered if I should have taken on the topic.

But I think your last point kind of speaks to that.

I think a core thing is that gap often between what convinces us and what convinces someone else.

I think it's often very tempting as a scientist to say, you know, the evidence is clear or, you know, the science has proved this.