Why Fact-Checking Donald Trump Doesn’t Work

Zach Kopplin sees similarities in the behavior of Donald Trump supporters and people who are committed to anti-science beliefs.

“In a 2014 study, Brendan Nyhan and several other researchers found that when parents with negative feelings about vaccines were presented with evidence that vaccines do not cause autism, they actually reported being less likely to vaccinate their children. The corrective information had a negative effect.”

Said Nyhan: “For highly controversial issues and political figures, there’s a risk that correct information is not only ineffective, but can make misconceptions worse. People who are exposed to correct information in the context of a debate over a controversial issue can end up believing more strongly in the misperception than people who never saw the correct information.”