September 2020

ALLEA at the Berlin Science Week

17. September 2020/in ALLEA News /by alleaadmin

With its first public webinar, ALLEA will contribute to the major conference, which takes place annually in Berlin and this year also digitally. A webinar “It’s complicated…” Europe facing cultural memories and nationalist sentiments will feature Joep Leerssen, 2020 Laureate of the ALLEA Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values.

Defending Truth: From Pseudo-Science to Science Disinformation

14. September 2020/in Digital Salon, Fact or Fake? /by Susana Irles

Prof. Dan Larhammar is a molecular cell biology professor at the University of Uppsala, the President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences as well as the Chair of ALLEA’s new project ‘Fact or Fake: Tackling Science Disinformation’. In this interview, he shares with us insights into his work on tackling pseudo-science such as homeopathy and alternative medicine, as well as how these trends work to some extent in similar ways as science disinformation efforts.

Key takeaways:

“It is important to be aware that many who use or provide alternative medicine honestly believe that it works (…). The believers must be offered an honourable retreat, so to speak, if they are to abandon ideas they may have held for many years.”
“Science disinformation is a term used not only for different types of distortion of scientific facts but also attacks on science in order to undermine trust, for instance by spreading contradictory information, weaving conspiracy theories, questioning expertise, spreading false rumours about science and scientists, etc.”
“People are often extremely reluctant to abandon ideas that they find appealing for one reason or another, or ideas they have been holding for a long period of time. Such ideas may have become part of their personality. (…) Information may even back-fire and consolidate the false beliefs instead of replacing them with scientifically well-founded information.”