William G. Pullin

Greetings. Why do people believe misinformation? Misinformation has been identified as a major contributor to various contentious contemporary events and topics of interest ranging from extrasensory perception, to political elections, to the belief in Bigfoot and Yeti, to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only can widespread belief in misinformation lead to poor judgements and decision-making, it also exerts a lingering influence on people’s reasoning after it has been corrected, an effect known as the continued influence effect. In other words, the almost complete abandonment of any and all critical thinking skills. People are more likely to believe misinformation if it originates from in-group sources rather than from out-group ones, or if they subjectively judge the source as credible and reliable. Such a judgment is based solely on opinion and not on objective facts, with such judgments being far too commonplace in today's society. People are also more likely to believ...

Greetings. Falsifcation.  Falsifcation is the effort to alter a part(s) of the research process, often to allow the investigative results to appear far more sensational and relevant than they are in reality.  Along with fabrication and plagiarism, falsifcation is considered serious research misconduct, rightfully so.  Falsifcation is defined by the European Code of Conduct as "manipulating research materials, equipment or processes or changing, ommitting or suppressing data or results without justification." Falsifying data is a serious form of research misconduct. Falsified data includes omitting or adding data points, removing outliers in a dataset and manipulating images. Image manipulation is a special form of falsifcation, as it uses software to edit photos, usually of laboratory tests, to let the results appear more convincing. This specifically concerns blots, gels, micrographs and radiological images. Fabricating data is making up non-existing results, where falsi...

Greetings. Confirmation Bias. Confirmation bias is the human tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior belief structures or personal values. People openly display confirmation bias when they select information that supports their own views, ignoring valid and contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? A series of psychological experiments conducted back in the 1960s strongly suggested that people are biased toward confirming their existing beliefs. A logical conclusion to say the least. Later work re-interpreted these results as a tendency to test ideas in a biased, one-sided manner, focusing on one possibility and ignoring all other alternatives. Explanations for the observed biases include wishful thinking a...