1/8 The last month has underscored the fact that misinformation & science denial is dangerous, can even cost lives. I’ve been applying the critical thinking approach developed for climate misinformation to coronavirus misinformation. Here is a summary of my COVID-19 posts so far.

2/8 From the very beginning, COVID-19 has been framed as an economy vs. lives issue - this is a familiar false dichotomy fallacy (in climate, the false dichotomy is economy vs. environment) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-IQUhKnUKn/ 

3/8 Critical thinking allows you to deconstruct misinformation in order to identify any reasoning fallacies (which you can then highlight to inoculate people). I applied this approach to the “COVID-19 is not as bad as the flu” myth with @ncse https://crankyuncle.com/critical-thinking-about-covid-19-flu-vs-coronavirus/

4/8 In the Conspiracy Theory Handbook, @stworg & I list 7 traits of conspiratorial thinking. I showed how all 7 traits appear in @realdonaldtrump’s “health workers are stealing medical equipment” conspiracy theory https://crankyuncle.com/donald-trumps-riff-on-medical-equipment-theft-is-textbook-conspiratorial-thinking/

5/8 When estimates of COVID-19 deaths was downgraded to 60,000, some called to relax social distancing. I deconstructed the logic of this argument with @climatenexus, borrowing a metaphor from Ruth Bader Ginsberg https://crankyuncle.com/critical-thinking-about-covid-19-downgraded-death-toll/

6/8 I participated on a virtual panel with @shannonosaka & @compatibilism from @grist, talking about the connections between climate change denial & coronavirus denial. Full video at https://grist.org/climate/what-do-you-trust-climate-science-and-covid-19-uncertainty/

7/8 I revisited social distancing denial using another powerful analogy demonstrating the fallacy of stopping social distancing just because it’s been successful (h/t @greghamra who suggested the analogy) https://crankyuncle.com/critical-thinking-about-covid-19-social-distancing-denial/

8/8 Tomorrow, I have a new article with @stworg coming out that examines the conspiracy theory that 5G caused COVID-19, featuring a cartoon analogy with Baby Yoda! (can you guess the analogy based on the cartoon?) Stay tuned at http://crankyuncle.com