As information becomes increasingly important, there is growing concern about misinformation, which includes the well-known "alternative facts" once promulgated from around the American president.
A professor of science - Cailin O'Connor - and a professor of logic - James Owen Weatherall - who both work in California, have now described "The Misinformation Age" and considered how false information is spread. Social factors seem to play a greater role than individual psychology, which is linked to new technologies - especially the internet and social media - and the fact that misinformation is used for propaganda purposes or packaged in entertaining advertising messages. In the USA, fake news has increased to such an extent that scientists are looking for an antidote. They propose two steps, the first of which warns against disinformation, while the second presents a watered-down form that raises eyebrows. However, as hard as the struggle for truth is, there are also objections to the efforts to deal with "fake news", as it does indeed seem difficult to recognize the lies by the linguistic style with which they are presented. It may be possible to provide individual help related to the sympathy shown to the mendacious proclaimer of the news, but there is still a long way to go to find a structural solution to misinformation.
"We live in the Misinformation Age!"
One problem with the willingness to believe disinformation seems to have to do with the fact that information from the field of science is becoming increasingly unbelievable. Recently, we read in the scientific journal "Nature" that one gram (!) of DNA can absorb and store enough information to transmit 10 million (!) hours of high-definition video. That must be a hoax, you might think. But software with billions of parameters has now been constructed from 2.7 million genomes of evolutionarily related organisms, which can recreate and design DNA sequences and improve biological existence as a whole. Its creators want to acquire the ability to "engineer life" in this way. That sounds incredible - but it's not a hoax, it's just information whose realization is written in the stars.
