A recent study led by Briony Swire-Thompson, a doctoral candidate in cognitive psychology at the University of Western Australia, documents the ineffectiveness of evidence-based information in refuting incorrect beliefs. In 2015 Swire-Thompson and her colleagues presented about 2,000 adult Americans with one of two statements: "Vaccines cause autism" or "Donald Trump said that vaccines cause autism." (Trump has repeatedly suggested there's a link, despite the lack of scientific evidence for it.)
西澳大學的認知心理學博士候選人布里奧妮·施懷雅-湯普森領銜的最近一項研究表明，循證信息在駁斥不正確信仰方面無效。2015年，施懷雅-湯普森及其同事向兩千名成年美國人提供了兩項聲明之一：“疫苗引起自閉癥”或“唐納德·特朗普說疫苗引起自閉癥”（特朗普多次表示兩者存在關聯，盡管缺乏科學證據。）
Not surprisingly, participants who were Trump supporters showed a decidedly stronger belief in the misinformation when it had Trump's name attached to it. Afterward the participants were given a short explanation—citing a large-scale study—for why the vaccine-autism link was false, and they were asked to reevaluate their belief in it. The participants—across the political spectrum—now accepted that the statements claiming the link were untrue, but testing them again a week later showed that their belief in the misinformation had bounced back to nearly the same level.
不足為奇的是，如果虛假信息與特朗普的名字有關聯時，那些支持特朗普的選民們會對此深信不疑。測試之后，被試得到了一個在引用大規模研究“為什么自閉癥和疫苗的聯系是錯的”后的簡短的解釋，他們被要求重新評估他們的信念。在政治層面，被試現在已經接受了兩者有關的言論是錯的，但是在一個星期后再次進行的測試表明，他們對錯誤信息的信念已經反彈到幾乎相同的水平。
Other studies have shown that evidence undermining lies may in fact strengthen belief in them. "People are likely to think that familiar information is true. So any time you retract it, you run the risk of making it more familiar, which makes that retraction actually less effective, ironically, over the long term," says Swire-Thompson.
其他研究表明，揭穿謊言的證據實際上可能增強了對它們的信念。“人們很可能認為熟悉的信息是真實的。所以不論何時你收回謊言，都將冒著使其變得更加熟悉的風險。諷刺的是，從長期來看，這使撤銷不那么有效。”施懷雅-湯普森說。
I experienced this phenomenon firsthand not long after I spoke to Swire-Thompson. When a friend sent me a link to an article ranking the 10 most corrupt political parties in the world, I promptly posted it to a WhatsApp group of about a hundred high school friends from India. The reason for my enthusiasm was that the fourth spot in the ranking was held by India's Congress Party, which in recent decades has been implicated in numerous corruption scandals. I chortled with glee because I'm not a fan of the party.
在我和施懷雅-湯普森談話不久后，我經歷了這個現象。當一個朋友發給我“世界上最腐敗的十個政黨的排名”的文章鏈接時，我立即把它發布到一個大約一百名印度的高中朋友的WhatsApp群中。我如此熱情的原因是，排名第四的是印度國會黨，近幾十年來，該黨牽連著許多腐敗丑聞。我歡呼雀躍，因為我不是它的擁護者。
But shortly after sharing the article, I discovered that the ranking, which included parties from Russia, Pakistan, China, and Uganda, wasn't based on any metrics. It had been done by a site called BBC Newspoint, which sounded like a credible source. But I found out that it had no connection to the British Broadcasting Corporation. I posted an apology to the group, noting that the article was in all likelihood fake news.
但在分享文章后不久，我發現這份包括俄羅斯、巴基斯坦和烏干達的政黨的排名，并沒有任何指標作為依據。這篇文章來自一個名為BBC Newspoint的網站，聽起來像一個可靠的信源，但我發現其與英國廣播公司并沒有任何聯系。于是我向群里的成員道歉，指出這篇文章很可能是一則假消息。
That didn't stop others from reposting the article to the group several times over the next day. I realized that the correction I'd posted had not had any effect. Many of my friends—because they shared my antipathy toward the Congress Party—were convinced the ranking was true, and every time they shared it, they were unwittingly, or perhaps knowingly, nudging it toward legitimacy. Countering it with fact would be in vain.
然而，這并沒有阻止他人在第二天多次將文章轉發給其他小組。我意識到我發布的更正沒有任何效果。我的許多朋友，因為他們對國會黨的反感，都相信這個排名是真實的。每次他們分享這個消息，他們就在不知不覺地，或者明知道是假新聞的情況下，把它推向合法性。打擊事實將是徒勞的。
What then might be the best way to impede the fleet-footed advance of untruths into our collective lives? The answer isn't clear. Technology has opened up a new frontier for deceit, adding a 21st-century twist to the age-old conflict between our lying and trusting selves.
阻礙謊言快速進入生活的最好方法是什么呢？答案并不明了。科技的發展在信任與謊言中將舊時代的沖突與21世紀扭曲相結合，為謊言開辟了一個新的邊境。
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