We live in the age of (in)credulity

The Netflix movie

in which two scientists who have discovered a comet that will hit the Earth are ridiculed, shows a society where a large part of the population denies the evidence and prefers to trust the rumors and theories that circulate on the streets. networks.

For this reason, some critical voices refuse to describe the film as a comedy, since they believe that it faithfully reflects our reality.

What is this phenomenon due to?

Why are more and more people questioning science or even ignoring it?

According to Ph.D. in Physics Sonia Fernández-Vidal, “everything that happens is due to the fact that, in the culture of the instantaneous, superficiality and laziness prevail.

We are not willing to delve into anything.

That is why they are taken for good absurd theories that go viral without anyone having verified them.

However, the temptation to seek alternative answers to the facts is not unique to today.

One of the thousands of examples that history offers us would be the vision of Robert FitzRoy —captain of the

during Charles Darwin's round-the-world trip— about the extinction of the dinosaurs.

He was convinced that the Bible, which he interpreted literally, had answers to any enigma.

Apparently, this led him to claim that the dinosaurs became extinct because they could not be saved from the universal flood, since they did not fit in Noah's ark because the doors were too small.

A design error that would cause them all to drown.

Perhaps this example seems hilarious to us, but it is no less preposterous than thousands of other hypotheses that flood the networks and are massively believed.

Returning to the question, how does a person come to believe this kind of theory?

Ramón Nogueras analyzes this issue in his essay

This psychologist and disseminator starts from the idea that lovers of hoaxes and conspiracy theories seek those means and information that confirm their vision of the world.

Thus, in order to protect their own perspective, all means that could disprove it are avoided, while at the same time feeding on content from friendly sources to reaffirm their belief.

That does not mean that these people are stupid or less capable than others.

The author says: “Intelligent people believe in nonsense just like less intelligent people and culture does not prevent them from having absurd ideas.

Our predisposition to believe in nonsense is a side effect of the way we process information: a capacity that, while it works wonderfully most of the time (and that's why we're here), can sometimes cause us to skid and end up thinking about things. rare”.

What way of processing reality facilitates the entry of these trojans of disinformation?

incomplete information

When we intend to believe in something certain, we cling to a specific fact and isolate it from its context, eliminating the rest of the information that would ruin our theory.

As Professor Hans Rosling (1948-2017) stated in his book

"There is no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear."

Predominance of the emotional

The advertising industry knows that an ad, more than providing data, must touch emotions.

This same logic is followed by hoaxers, who seek to stir up what we feel—fear, surprise, anger—instead of promoting rational analysis.

To this end, the visual is often above the narrative.

propagation speed

On Halloween night in 1938, tens of thousands of Americans believed the country was being invaded by aliens when they mistook the radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds for a newscast.

Highways were clogged with fleeing families and supermarket raids to stock up for the apocalypse.

Many people had started listening to the program late, so they did not know that it was fiction, and in fact it was not until minute 40 that Orson Welles and his team reminded the audience that they were narrating the adaptation of a novel.

If this happened with a program that was warned more than once that it was a radio play, imagine the impact that current social networks can have, when anyone can spread their truth at lightning speed.

Ramón Nogueras concludes: "We all carry an information dispensing machine, which does not care about its veracity."

Francesc Miralles is a writer and journalist expert in psychology.

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