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• How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason by Lee McIntyre
• Michael Filas (bio)

This book is Lee McIntyre’s fourth monograph from MIT Press, and it continues his examination of how we understand truth and post-truth. While he examines science deniers of many stripes—from flat-earthers to anti-vaxxers to climate deniers—he juggles his own deference to the principles of science with an earnest investment in swinging science deniers, one at a time, face-to-face, into the fold of science believers. Readers get a thorough review of the history and key moments in several pockets of science denial, but this review comes in the context, as advertised, of a reformer’s guide to converting the nonbelievers. McIntyre discovers that you do not convert science deniers by throwing volumes of data at them, or by belittling their perspective. Science deniers hold on to their beliefs less as rational facts than as a dimension of their identity. Only a respectful, recursive, face-to-face conversation will initiate a person’s belief transformation, and commensurate identity shift.

The book begins as McIntyre recounts his investigatory trip to the 2018 Flat Earth International Conference in Denver, engaging with “six-hundred shouting, clapping true believers” (xvi), and documenting, through personal accounts, how he engaged with the convention attendees. He sustained listening, respect, and a measured approach throughout his interactions with the flat-earthers, but his mind was not changed (“don’t worry, I’m not one of them” he writes [p. 29]). However, through respectful dialogue, McIntyre learns how to recognize the telltale attributes, a nomenclature of five tropes he calls a “secret decoder ring” for fighting science denial (xiii).

This methodological centerpiece argues that all science deniers make “the same [End Page 497] few mistakes in human reasoning: (1) Cherry picking evidence; (2) Belief in conspiracy theories; (3) Reliance on fake experts (and denigration of real experts); (4) Committing logical errors; and (5) Setting impossible expectations for what science can achieve” (p. 33). And McIntyre uses this five-trope critique throughout subsequent chapters, which include discussions of anti-vaxxers, climate denial, coronavirus denial, and opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

The book is structured in part as a travelogue through various brands of science denial, exemplifying as it goes McIntyre’s method for engaging in dialogue. Through the introduction and first chapter, we learn the nuances of how and why flat-earthers at the 2018 Denver conference have come to believe that “globalists” have bought into a hoax, sustained by faked photos from NASA; this exemplifies the conspiracy theory element of the five-trope critique. In chapter 2, we get a more in-depth explanation of each of the five telltale tropes, enumerated above, that reveal the errant thinking in science denial, plus a look at the motivational and psychological roots of science denial. This section importantly shifts the focus from how science denial is created to why people believe it, such as “motivated reasoning . . . whereby we are more prone to look for information that backs up things we want to believe” (p. 47, emphasis in original). And it also broaches one of the main insights of this book: “The content of the belief may not be as important as the social identity it affords” (p. 54).

Chapter 3 goes deeper into the psychology of how and why science deniers hold their beliefs, and why they are difficult to convince with facts alone. He writes about concepts like the “backfire effect,” wherein a person becomes more convinced of their original mistaken belief when they are presented with correcting information (p. 63). “Belief formation and change are not just a matter of having correct factual information, but of the emotional, social, and psychological context within which beliefs are formed” (p. 66). The second part of the chapter illustrates the importance of face-to-face conversations in convincing hard-core science deniers to reconsider their beliefs. And here, McIntyre provides an...

审核人：

• 如何与科学否认者交谈：与平地主义者、气候否认者和其他无视理性的人的对话 Lee McIntyre
• 迈克尔·菲拉斯（生物）

这本书是李·麦金太尔 (Lee McIntyre) 麻省理工学院出版社出版的第四本专着，它继续他对我们如何理解真相和后真相的研究。当他审视各种各样的科学否认者时——从扁平地球论者到反vaxxers再到气候否认者——他兼顾自己对科学原理的尊重，并认真投资于摇摆不定的科学否认者，一次一个，面对面，进入科学信徒的圈子。读者可以在几个否认科学的地方全面回顾历史和关键时刻，但正如宣传的那样，这篇评论是在改革者转变非信徒的指南的背景下进行的。麦金太尔发现，你不会通过向他们扔大量数据或贬低他们的观点来改变科学否认者。科学否认者坚持他们的信念，与其说是理性事实，不如说是他们的一个维度。身份。只有尊重的、递归的、面对面的对话才会引发一个人的信仰转变，以及相应的身份转变。

这本书的开头是麦金太尔讲述了他在丹佛参加 2018 年平地国际会议的调查之旅，与“六百名高呼，为真正的信徒鼓掌”(xvi) 互动，并通过个人账户记录了他如何与会议与会者互动。在与扁平地球人的互动过程中，他一直倾听、尊重和谨慎的态度，但他的想法没有改变（“别担心，我不是他们中的一员”，他写道 [p. 29]）。然而，通过相互尊重的对话，麦金太尔学会了如何识别这些特征，他称之为“秘密解码环”的五个比喻的命名法，用于对抗科学否认 (xiii)。

这个方法论的核心认为，所有科学否认者都犯了“相同的[End Page 497]人类推理中的一些错误：（1）樱桃采摘证据；(2) 相信阴谋论；(3) 依赖假专家（以及诋毁真专家）；（四）犯逻辑错误；(5) 为科学可以实现的目标设定不可能的期望”（第 33 页）。麦金太尔在随后的章节中使用了这种五种说法的批评，其中包括对反疫苗者、气候否认、冠状病毒否认和反对转基因生物 (GMO) 的讨论。

这本书的结构部分是通过各种品牌否认科学的游记，体现了麦金太尔参与对话的方法。通过引言和第一章，我们了解了 2018 年丹佛会议上的扁平地球人如何以及为什么相信“全球主义者”已经接受了一个骗局，这些骗局是由美国宇航局的伪造照片所支持的；这体现了五比喻批评的阴谋论元素。在第 2 章中，我们更深入地解释了上面列举的五个隐喻，揭示了科学否定中的错误思维，以及否定科学的动机和心理根源。本节重要地将焦点从如何创建科学否认转移到为什么人们相信它，例如“动机推理”。. . 从而我们更倾向于寻找支持我们想要相信的事物的信息”（第 47 页，原文强调）。它还提出了本书的主要见解之一：“信仰的内容可能不如它所提供的社会身份重要”（第 54 页）。

第 3 章更深入地探讨了科学否认者如何以及为什么持有他们的信念的心理学，以及为什么他们很难仅凭事实说服他们。他写了诸如“适得其反”之类的概念，其中当一个人收到更正的信息时，他们会更加相信他们最初的错误信念（第 63 页）。“信念的形成和改变不仅仅是拥有正确的事实信息的问题，而是信念形成的情感、社会和心理背景的问题”（第 66 页）。本章的第二部分说明了面对面对话在说服顽固的科学否认者重新考虑他们的信念方面的重要性。在这里，麦金太尔提供了一个……