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War Is Peace: Can Science Fight Media Disinformation? - Scientific Ame... https://www.scientificamerican.
com/article/war-is-peace/
In the 24/7 Internet world, people make lots of claims. Science provides a guide for
testing them
1 de 10 15/03/2018 11:15 p. m.
War Is Peace: Can Science Fight Media Disinformation? - Scientific Ame... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/war-is-peace/
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When I saw the statement repeated online that theoretical physicist

Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge would be dead by
now if he lived in the U.K. and had to depend on the National Health
Service (he, of course, is alive and working in the U.K., where he
always has), I reflected on something I had written a dozen years
2 de 10 15/03/2018 11:15 p. m.
ago, in one of my first published commentaries:
“The increasingly blatant nature of the nonsense uttered with

impunity in public discourse is chilling. Our democratic society is
imperiled as much by this as any other single threat, regardless of
whether the origins of the nonsense are religious fanaticism, simple
ignorance or personal gain.”
As I listen to the manifest nonsense that has been promulgated by

the likes of right-wing fanatic radio hosts and moronic ex-governors
in response to the effort to bring the U.S. into alignment with other
industrial countries in providing reasonable and affordable health
care for all its citizens, it seems that things have only gotten worse in
the years since I first wrote those words.
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English novelist George Orwell was remarkably prescient about
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many things, and one of the most disturbing aspects of his

masterpiece 1984 involved the blatant perversion of objective
reality, using constant repetition of propaganda by a militaristic
government in control of all the media.
Centrally coordinated and fully effective reinvention of reality has

not yet come about in the U.S. (even though a White House aide in
the past administration came chillingly close when he said to a New
York Times reporter, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we
create our own reality”). I am concerned, however that something
equally pernicious, at least to the free exercise of democracy, has.
The rise of a ubiquitous Internet, along with 24-hour news channels

has, in some sense, had the opposite effect from what many might
have hoped such free and open access to information would have
had. It has instead provided free and open access, without the
traditional media filters, to a barrage of disinformation. Nonsense
claims had more difficulty gaining traction in the days when print
journalism held sway and newspaper editors had the final word on
what made its way into homes and when television news consisted
of a half-hour summary of what a trained producer thought were the
most essential stories of the day.
Now fabrications about “death panels” and oxymoronic claims that

”government needs to keep its hands off of Medicare” flow freely on
the Internet, driving thousands of zombielike protesters to
Washington to argue that access to health care will undermine their
fundamental freedom to have their insurance canceled if they get
sick. And 24-hour news channels, desperate to provide ”breaking”
coverage at all hours, end up serving as public relations vehicles for
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any celebrity who happens to make an outrageous claim or, worse,

decide that the competition for ratings requires them to be anything
but ”fair and balanced” in their reporting.
“Fair and balanced,” however, doesn’t mean putting all viewpoints,

regardless of their underlying logic or validity, on an equal footing.
Discerning the merits of competing claims is where the empirical
basis of science should play a role. I cannot stress often enough that
what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving
them to be false. What fails the test of empirical reality, as
determined by observation and experiment, gets thrown out like
yesterday’s newspaper. One doesn’t need to debate about whether
the earth is flat or 6,000 years old. These claims can safely be
discarded, and have been, by the scientific method.
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What makes people so susceptible to nonsense in public discourse?
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Is it because we do such a miserable job in schools teaching what

science is all about—that it is not a collection of facts or stories but a
process for weeding out nonsense to get closer to the underlying
beautiful reality of nature? Perhaps not. But I worry for the future of
our democracy if a combination of a free press and democratically
elected leaders cannot together somehow more effectively defend
empirical reality against the onslaught of ideology and fanaticism.
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "War Is
Peace."
This article was originally published with the title "War is Peace"
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Lawrence M. Krauss, a theoretical physicist, commentator and book author, is Foundation

Professor and director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University
(http://krauss.faculty.asu.edu).
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A L L RI G H T S R ESE R VE D .
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War Is Peace: Can Science Fight Media Disinformation? - Scientific Ame... https://www.scientificamerican.

When I saw the statement repeated online that theoretical physicist

ago, in one of my first published commentaries:

“The increasingly blatant nature of the nonsense uttered with

As I listen to the manifest nonsense that has been promulgated by

English novelist George Orwell was remarkably prescient about

many things, and one of the most disturbing aspects of his

Centrally coordinated and fully effective reinvention of reality has

The rise of a ubiquitous Internet, along with 24-hour news channels

Now fabrications about “death panels” and oxymoronic claims that

any celebrity who happens to make an outrageous claim or, worse,

“Fair and balanced,” however, doesn’t mean putting all viewpoints,

What makes people so susceptible to nonsense in public discourse?

Is it because we do such a miserable job in schools teaching what

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Lawrence M. Krauss, a theoretical physicist, commentator and book author, is Foundation

Stephen Hawking as Accidental Climate Change Goes Firmly in the

The Surprising Ways Tigers Benefit Tumor Mutation Burden:

- 30% - 40% - 60%

Neuroscience. Evolution. Health. Chemistry. Physics.

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