The Irrational Ape: Why Flawed Logic Puts us all at Risk and How Critical Thinking Can Save the World

by David Robert Grimes

A massive 2018 study published in Science delved into the fractured fabric of modern discourse, analysing 126,000 contested news stories between 2006 and 2017. Their findings make for sobering reading. By any metric one employs, hoax and rumour completely eclipse truth, and falsehoods consistently dominate the narrative: ‘Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information, and the effects were more pronounced for false political news than for false news about terrorism, natural disasters, science, urban legends, or financial information.’ Emotional content was again a predictor of how widely shared an item would be, and false narratives were crafted to elicit disgust, fear and direct anger.