A Book Review

The Misinformation Age

How False Beliefs Spread, and What We Can Do About Them

Short Version

The Misinformation Age by Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall offers important insight for scientists, journalists, nonfiction writers, and anyone who wants to combat the spread of false beliefs.

How Misinformation Spreads and What We Can Do About Them

“Individually rational agents can form groups that are not rational at all.”

If you have had this feeling lately when reading the news, then I suggest you read The Misinformation Age by Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall.

The authors are both professors of logic and philosophy of science at the University of California Irvine. In this book, they examine how how we learn from those we trust and how beliefs spread through communities. The very fact that we count on the knowledge of others means that we are susceptible to misinformation.

A focus on science

As they write, “Most of us get our false beliefs from the same places we get our true ones, and if we want the good stuff, we risk getting the bad as well.”