How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason

by Lee McIntyre

I wanted to take seriously (and try to dispel) the common misconception these days that every question about facts and truth is political. It’s not.

Although it’s tempting in these post-truth times—when we see serious discussions about facts, proof, evidence, and lying about the economy, environment, immigration, crime, coronavirus, and a host of other topics on our TV news every day—to conclude that the only explanation for disbelief and denial is one’s political identity, that’s simply not true.

the most important roots of post-truth (which I define as the “political subordination of reality”) was sixty years of largely unchecked science denial.

One reason for this is that much of the disinformation being generated about scientific “controversies”—about climate change, anti-vaxx, COVID-19 conspiracies, and even (quite prominently) about GMOs—is being generated through Russian propaganda efforts aimed at increasing polarization among the populace and eroding trust in government in the United States and other Western democracies.

And of course relying on bogus or made-up evidence for your skepticism—or having no evidence whatsoever as the basis for your concerns—constitutes denialism too.

Science denial can kill. Especially when in the hands of a national government, denialist beliefs are unusually deadly.

Science works through a painstaking process of checking one’s hypothesis against the evidence in hope of decreasing uncertainty.

As they learn more, scientists’ beliefs change. But to a denier, any uncertainty by experts is taken as grounds for the credibility of alternative views, whether or not they are warranted by the evidence.

in some ways COVID-19 denial is the ultimate example of what might happen in the future if we can’t stop the politicization of science.

According to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, nearly half of the Twitter accounts spreading misinformation about coronavirus are likely bots.

Approximately 82 percent of the fifty most influential retweeters on ending the lockdowns and various COVID-19 conspiracies have been bots.

Russian disinformation efforts to exploit existing fault lines in America to sow more discord and division. Some of these efforts can be traced directly to Russian military intelligence, which has used three English-language websites “as part of an ongoing and persistent effort to advance false narratives and cause confusion” during the pandemic.

the nexus between science denial, disinformation, and politics does not stop at the nation’s border.

for those who care about the role that social media has played in exacerbating science denial in general—not to mention the larger issue of truth itself—it is frustrating that these companies have not been more proactive in trying to combat misinformation and disinformation that will inevitably cause harm.

Empirical research by Stephan Lewandowsky, John Cook, Sander van der Linden, and others shows that appealing to the fact of a scientific consensus is one of the most compelling ways to get someone to change their mistaken empirical beliefs.

How tempting it is to shut out people who disagree with us and dismiss them as stupid—or change the channel because we can’t even stand to see where they are getting their information—as we prefer to talk only to people who already agree with us.

we need to start talking to one another again, especially to those with whom we disagree. But we have to be smart about how we do it. Simply sharing information does not work. And insulting people or shaming them for their beliefs definitely does not work.

If our goal is actually to convince someone to give up their denialist beliefs, we have to approach such conversations with as much empathy and respect as we can, toward the goal of building trust an...

shaming and stigma are exactly the wrong way to get anti-maskers or other COVID-19 deniers to change their beliefs or behaviors, especially in an atmosphere of distrust.

They just felt scared and stripped of their dignity. They needed someone to respect and listen to them—which in turn built trust—and as a result that trust was returned.

most people—even Republicans—still trust science.

in their desire to be authoritative, public health experts have eroded trust by not accurately communicating uncertainty and by being stubborn about correcting the record when our understanding evolved.…

Once you’ve made a confident pronouncement, then taken it back, it’s too late. Trust is gone. The time to share qualifiers or express uncertainty is from the very beginning, even if your intentions are pure and you just want to keep people as safe as possible.

one of the greatest weapons we have to fight back against science denial is to embrace uncertainty as a strength rather than a weakness of science.

The most effective way to talk to a science denier is to try to build trust through direct personal engagement, showing humility and respect, while demonstrating transparency and openness about how science works.

We need to teach people not just the facts of science but also its values, and how those values inform the processes by which science makes its discoveries.

Walking away or refusing to engage with science deniers is the worst possible thing you can do. If your conversation partner is misinformed, continuing the conversation is the best way to try to get them to change their mind.

The challenge is not just to get people to accept certain facts, or change their beliefs, but to begin to understand and appreciate how scientists have acquired their hard-won knowledge through a process of rigorous examination, cooperative testing, and tolerance of uncertainty, so that deniers might begin to identify more with the values (and reasoning processes) of scientists.

Too many of the people in charge today are science deniers, and they hold an unreasonable amount of power over our future.

Right-wing media has played a key role in disseminating misinformation about the coronavirus.