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Peer-reviewed article

Pseudoscience as media effect

May 4, 2020 | Media and Technology

The popularity of the anti-vax movement in the United States and elsewhere is the cause of new lethal epidemics of diseases that are fully preventable by modern medicine [Benecke and DeYoung, 2019]. Creationism creeps into science classrooms with the aim of undermining the teaching of evolution through legal obligations or school boards’ decisions to present both sides of a debate largely foreign to the scientific community [Taylor, 2017]. And one simply has to turn on the TV and watch so-called science channels to be bombarded with aliens, ghosts, cryptids and miracles as though they are undisputable facts [Prothero, 2012]. Deprecated by its detractors, scientific proof is assimilated to become one opinion among others, if not a mere speculation. Worse, scientific data that challenge partisan positions or economic interests are dismissed as ‘junk science’ and their proponents as ‘shills’ [Oreskes and Conway, 2010]. By echoing such statements, some members of the media, often willing accomplices in conflating denial and scepticism, amplify manufactured controversies and cast growing doubt upon scientific credibility.

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  • Alexandre Schiele
    Author
    Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  • Citation

    ISSN : 1824-2049
    DOI : 10.22323/2.19020101
    Publication Name: Journal of Science Communication
    Volume: 19
    Number: 2
    Resource Type: Research Products
    Discipline: General STEM | Health and medicine | History/policy/law | Space science
    Audience: General Public | Museum/ISE Professionals | Scientists
    Environment Type: Media and Technology | Broadcast Media | Websites, Mobile Apps, and Online Media

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