What's more effective in countering misinformation: facts or logic? @ekvraga, @sojungckim, @LeticiaBode & I just published a study exploring this question. If you have library access, go to journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19… otherwise open-access pre-press at sks.to/factvsmyth 1/13
We looked at two ways to counter misinformation: fact-based (show how misinformation is false by providing accurate information) or logic-based (explain how misinformation misleads by exposing its rhetorical techniques or logical fallacies)... 2/13
In my Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change book, I use both methods to counter climate myths. Here's a page from the book where I counter the "CO2 is plant food so it's good to emit CO2" myth by explaining the facts & the fallacy in the myth. crankyuncle.com/book 3/13 
Credit where credit is due, I borrowed (stole? homaged?) the ice cream analogy from @FataMorgana_LS’s @denial101x lecture debunking the plant food myth. 4/13
While we're on the topic of @denial101x, note the Fact-Myth-Fallacy structure is used in all our videos. Fact/fallacy of every climate myth is summarized neatly in a one-stop-shop resource for anyone needing a quick response on climate misinformation: sks.to/fmf 5/13
For our experiment, we chose the myth "CO2 is plant food so emitting CO2 is good." Here's what our misinformation post looked like (in the form of an Instagram post): 6/13
In our experiment, our fact-based correction explained how plants need a variety of conditions - including a comfortable temperature range and steady water supply - to flourish. We reinforced the factual explanation with the prickly pool plant cartoon. 7/13
The logic-based correction explained the fallacy of oversimplification, ignoring the complex set of factors required for healthy plant growth. It's like eating ice cream and saying... well, it's all in the cartoon: 8/13
In our experiment, we divided participants into 5 groups. This bar chart shows each group's belief in the myth. Some groups saw the correction before the myth (prebunking) or after the myth (debunking). The overall result is that logic outperformed facts. Go team logic! 9/13
But it's important to dig deeper into why. The fact-based correction's success depended on if it came before or after the myth. If facts came last, they were just as effective as logic. But if myth came last, it cancelled out the facts. 10/13
In contrast, logic was effective regardless of ordering. This indicates that explaining the rhetorical technique that a myth uses is potentially more robust in neutralizing misinformation, whereas the effectiveness of facts depend on what order people receive information. 11/13
This is not to say that countering misinformation with facts is unimportant. But this research does highlight how logic and critical thinking - an under-utilized and under-studied approach - is a powerful tool in neutralizing misinformation. 12/13
You can read the full paper at sks.to/factvslogic 13/13
Oh nearly forgot! The blog post where I go into more detail about all this is at crankyuncle.com/which-counters… 14/13
