Digital List Price:	$17.99
Kindle Price:	$11.99 Save $6.00 (33%)
Sold by:	Amazon.com Services LLC

Add Audible narration to your purchase for just $7.49

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread by [Cailin O'Connor, James Owen Weatherall]

Follow the Authors

James Owen Weatherall

Cailin O'Connor

The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread Kindle Edition

by Cailin O'Connor (Author), James Owen Weatherall (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 263 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$11.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$21.97

$19.98

$5.31

Paperback

"Please retry"

$13.53

$11.88

$8.09

Audio CD, MP3 Audio, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$27.29

—

Kindle
$11.99 Read with Our Free App
Audiobook
$0.00 Free with your Audible trial
Hardcover
$21.97

15 Used from $5.31 6 New from $19.98 1 Collectible from $25.00
Paperback
$13.53

19 Used from $8.09 16 New from $11.88
Audio CD
$27.29

2 New from $27.29

“Empowering and thoroughly researched, this book offers useful contemporary analysis and possible solutions to one of the greatest threats to democracy.” —Kirkus Reviews

Editors’ choice, The New York Times Book Review

Recommended reading, Scientific American

Why should we care about having true beliefs? And why do demonstrably false beliefs persist and spread despite bad, even fatal, consequences for the people who hold them?

Philosophers of science Cailin O’Connor and James Weatherall argue that social factors, rather than individual psychology, are what’s essential to understanding the spread and persistence of false beliefs. It might seem that there’s an obvious reason that true beliefs matter: false beliefs will hurt you. But if that’s right, then why is it (apparently) irrelevant to many people whether they believe true things or not?

The Misinformation Age, written for a political era riven by “fake news,” “alternative facts,” and disputes over the validity of everything from climate change to the size of inauguration crowds, shows convincingly that what you believe depends on who you know. If social forces explain the persistence of false belief, we must understand how those forces work in order to fight misinformation effectively.

“[The authors] deftly apply sociological models to examine how misinformation spreads among people and how scientific results get misrepresented in the public sphere.” —Andrea Gawrylewski, Scientific American

“A notable new volume . . . The Misinformation Age explains systematically how facts are determined and changed—whether it is concerning the effects of vaccination on children or the Russian attack on the integrity of the electoral process.” —Roger I. Abrams, New York Journal of Books

Print length

279 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Yale University Press
Publication date

January 8, 2019
File size

1688 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
See all details

Sue Black
1,645
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $1.99
DK
1,915
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Sue Black
4,225
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $18.99
Michael Ruhlman
550
Kindle Edition
in Agriculture Industry
1 offer from $9.99
Michael Lewis
39
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $12.99
Nomi Prins
72
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $18.99

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Methodical and earnest.”—Jennifer Szalai, New York Times

“The Misinformation Age covers big subjects like truth and the fate of the species” —Jennifer Szalai, International New York Times

“Empowering and thoroughly researched, this book offers useful contemporary analysis and possible solutions to one of the greatest threats to democracy.”—Kirkus Reviews

“[The authors] deftly apply sociological models to examine how misinformation spreads among people and how scientific results get misrepresented in the public sphere. They offer scientific case studies—the discovery that CFCs were responsible for the ozone hole in the 1980s, for example—to explore the question of what constitutes truth and to consider the role that information plays in a healthy democracy.”—Andrea Gawrylewski, Scientific American

“A notable new volume . . .The Misinformation Age explains systematically how facts are determined and changed—whether it is concerning the effects of vaccination on children or the Russian attack on the integrity of the electoral process.”—Roger I. Abrams, New York Journal of Books

"It’s a good read on a very important subject, definitely worth exploring."—Hugh Taylor, Journal of Cyberpolicy

"Engaging and sophisticated. . . . The Misinformation Age captures the threat posed by misinformation in the current political moment."—Steven Slomin, American Scientist

“An important book for an era of weaponized information.”—George Musser, contributing editor, Scientific American and Nautilus

"Fake news has revealed a dark side of networks: an almost unstoppable ability to spread false and misleading information, changing people's perception of reality and shaking the political establishment. The Misinformation Age is a timely, engaging narrative of how this happened and how the mix of fake news and networks is changing our world."—Albert-László Barabási, author of Linked: The New Science of Networks

"In this perilous moment—when knowledge is powerfully eroded by new and effective campaigns of misinformation—O’Connor and Weatherall offer a critically important philosophical defense of evidence, facts, and above all, the truth."—Allan M. Brandt, Harvard University

“The Misinformation Age is the best book I've read on why the fake-news epidemic is afflicting us and what we can do about it. It offers in-depth reporting and provocative analysis delivered in lively prose, a rare combination.”—John Horgan, director of the Center for Science Writings, Stevens Institute of Technology

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Cailin O’Connor is associate professor of logic and philosophy of science at the University of California, Irvine. James Owen Weatherall is professor of logic and philosophy of science at the University of California, Irvine, and author of the New York Times best-seller The Physics of Wall Street. Both are members of the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Science. They reside in California. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07L14B7P1
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Yale University Press; 1st edition (January 8, 2019)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 8, 2019
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1688 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 279 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #152,000 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #50 in Propaganda & Political Psychology
- #55 in Media Studies (Kindle Store)
- #108 in Social Psychology & Interactions

Customer Reviews:
4.4 263 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

James Owen Weatherall
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
James Owen Weatherall is a physicist, philosopher, and mathematician, currently working as Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California, Irvine, where he is also a member of the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Science. He lives in Irvine, CA with his wife and two daughters.
See more on the author's page
Cailin O'Connor
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
I’m a philosopher of biology and behavioral sciences, philosopher of science, and evolutionary game theorist. I am Associate Professor in the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, and a member of the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Science at UC Irvine.
When not busy doing philosophy, I am a poultry enthusiast and aerial acrobat.
My Erdos-Bacon number is 7.
See more on the author's page

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

263 global ratings

5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all photos

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Anonymous

A Must Read for Anyone Interested in 21st Century Media Literacy

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 31, 2023

Verified Purchase

This book develops and summarizes a lot of important ideas in the spread of information and belief within communities and more broadly. It includes many historical examples that get touched on throughout the book (seriously, the entire book has a lot of historical discussions and facts) that do make it easier to understand the ideas conceptually as they are developed in the book.

The book has 4 sections which roughly discuss the following topics:
1) What is the goal of science? Discusses the implications of scientific methods, certainty, and reasoning to discuss how we should interpret different types of evidence. It largely does this through the examination of different cases throughout history that get referred back to later on in the book.
2) How do belief's spread amount communities of science? Works off of a specific model of the spread of belief developed by Bala and Goyal in the paper "Learning from neighbors"---It should be noted that the authors have published peer reviewed works that go on to extend the works of this that are summarized in the book
3) What are some of the ways that propagandists can spread propaganda? This discussion is again largely focused on academic research, but also begins to develop the basis for the last section on how media representations of science can effect popular and political opinions.
4) How does this all apply in the 21st century? This last chapter is really focused on taking the more historically focused concepts of the previous sections and applying them with modern examples to discuss the modern day implications of these ideas.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

M. Jose

A careful and illuminating exegesis of how we got to here, but not much more

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 9, 2019

Verified Purchase

I'm a technical professional in a tech-rich region of the country, so I'm used to being tasked by everyday conversations to consider novel notions. This book activated these same challenge reflexes, allowing me to stay in my engaged-comfort-zone. It's undoubtedly a book by intellectuals for intellectuals, and I'm not sure I would have bought it if it wasn't, the world currently being what it is.

The authors clearly decided early on that persuasion would not be among their goals, which is laudable but would certainly detract from their publication-release "buzz"; I see this as an unavoidable artifact of modern book publicity, and I'll ignore it. The book is properly a scientific anchor-point, as opposed to a policy statement, and policy wonks should look elsewhere for inspiration.

The book excels in accurately describing the gradual subversion that the historical notion of "marketplace of ideas" has endured over more than 100 years. More importantly, it explains in depth the degree to which modern special interests hold the upper hand over honest and earnest pursuers of truth, through the use of centuries-old propagandistic methods, in spite of all our modern technological achievements.

The book offers no clear prescriptions, nor is it clear to me that it should. It's sufficient to me that the authors explained how scientists arrive at scientific certainty, and that they describe the various ways interested parties have sought to disrupt that certainty among the electorate.

45 people found this helpful

Helpful

James Forest

Enormously relevent book for these times

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 20, 2022

Verified Purchase

This important book reveals the social psychology and other dynamics that lead people to believe in ideological phenomena like QAnon, the big lie, and many other conspiracy narratives that can be easily disproved with factual evidence. Unfortunately, the people who really need to read this book and engage in some serious self-reflection are most unlikely to do so, in large part because they have surrounded themselves with others who have also been deceived into believing that which is untrue.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

LinkedInSecrets - Author of 4 LinkedIn Books

A book about misinformation that is full of it

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 26, 2022

Verified Purchase

Well the title was good, but that is where the goodness ends. I don't believe the samples studied need to be used to help bring to the surface the amount of misinformation out there.

In the book I recommend skipping the introduction and going straight to Chapter 1. Talks about ozone, but is their scientific evidence to prove these theories are actual facts? Page 20 the Phonys award themselves – Nobel Prize for Chemistry. So an example of misinformation. Just research the family name. I would skip pages 20-24. Meaningless information. Climate change – the temperature changes every day – doh!

Page 25: Lyndon Johnson – “…launched a massive escalation of war in Vietnam in 1965 on the basis of outright lies about the status and prospects of ongoing conflict.: When one understands that “war is a racket”, and most enemies are fictious, created by intelligence agencies, this statement is irrelevant. Fast forward today and you still have the same lies, perpetrated by a different puppet, whose blood-line goes back centuries.

Page 27 – both Einstein and Newton are gatekeepers to truth, so one should not pay much attention to what they have said, and the propaganda/aka misinformation that has been repeated for decades since.

In summary chapter 1 is just about industrial propaganda when in reality it’s just a few families at the top fighting for their money that they seemingly believe they are entitled to. Skip it.

You can simply go over the last 10 years to understand that. I would skip the first couple of chapters. Start at Chapter 3.

I didn't like the book, as it doesn't help resolve the intended purpose of misinformation that has occurred for thousands of years.

Just look at the recent noble prize award for science - they had to go right back to 1972!

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

John B. Wheeler

A must read!!!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 13, 2019

Verified Purchase

A thorough, informative, and engaging look into modern day mass psychology and opinions, the basis of many being completely fabricated or influenced by agents set on achieving their own social and/or political agendas at any cost. This book allowed for a far deeper understanding of how we process and use information information that comes to us (as well as how and why false information reaches us). This highlights how in this day and age, we must all be ever vigilant in our critical assessment and belief of everything we hear/see in our never ending pursuit of truth. A must read!

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Robby Beeharry

Good book

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on October 2, 2022

Verified Purchase

Bought this for a philosophy class but it’s a good read.

Teunis

A lot of this is common sense

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on May 14, 2021

Verified Purchase

I found the book pointed out many ways of looking at the world. It points out most of it is about listening to many sources, weighing up what is going on and using common sense. At least that is the way I read it.

Daniela Mesa

Great book, delivered perfectly

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 28, 2021

Verified Purchase

Great book, delivered perfectly

Jeffrey Noah

Endorses pc race victimization theory & feminist misandry

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on February 9, 2019

Verified Purchase

“The Misinformation Age - How False Beliefs Spread,” criticizes, “largely make white and Western European culture that had committed atrocities around the world”. “The whole field of statistics” is claimed derived from ‘racial superiority’. O’Connor & Weaterall endorse Sandra Harding, a ‘feminist theorists’ who exposed “the proliferation of rape metaphors, with the scientist forcing Mother Nature to submit”.
A book on “misinformation” should not endorse political correctness, race victimization theory or misandric feminism.
Returned for refund.

8 people found this helpful

Paola Rivolt

Worth it

Reviewed in Italy 🇮🇹 on June 23, 2021

Verified Purchase

I just wanted to point out that the review that says the book "endorses pc race victimization theory & feminist misandry” takes those sentences out of context. The authors were describing the works of others who criticize the cultural biases of scientists, in order to consider whether that matters when evaluating the scientists' research. In fact, the point they make is that while scientists may actually be biased, that doesn't undermine their results. That's quite different than how it sounds from the review.
No big deal, but that one misled me when I was thinking whether to get the book.

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers	6pm Score deals on fashion brands	AbeBooks Books, art & collectibles	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy	Sell on Amazon Start a Selling Account

Amazon Business Everything For Your Business	Amazon Fresh Groceries & More Right To Your Door	AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally	Home Services Experienced Pros Happiness Guarantee	Amazon Ignite Sell your original Digital Educational Resources	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Audible Listen to Books & Original Audio Performances	Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Box Office Mojo Find Movie Box Office Data	ComiXology Thousands of Digital Comics	DPReview Digital Photography	Fabric Sewing, Quilting & Knitting

Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	IMDbPro Get Info Entertainment Professionals Need	Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital & Print Publishing Made Easy	Amazon Photos Unlimited Photo Storage Free With Prime	Prime Video Direct Video Distribution Made Easy

Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Amazon Warehouse Great Deals on Quality Used Products	Whole Foods Market America’s Healthiest Grocery Store	Woot! Deals and Shenanigans	Zappos Shoes & Clothing	Ring Smart Home Security Systems

eero WiFi Stream 4K Video in Every Room	Blink Smart Security for Every Home	Neighbors App Real-Time Crime & Safety Alerts	Amazon Subscription Boxes Top subscription boxes – right to your door	PillPack Pharmacy Simplified	Amazon Renewed Like-new products you can trust

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the Authors

The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread Kindle Edition

Customers who viewed this item also viewed