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.)
西澳大学的认知心理学博士候选人布里奥妮·施怀雅-汤普森领衔的最近一项研究表明，循证信息在驳斥不正确信仰方面无效。2015年，施怀雅-汤普森及其同事向两千名成年美国人提供了两项声明之一：“疫苗引起自闭症”或“唐纳德·特朗普说疫苗引起自闭症”（特朗普多次表示两者存在关联，尽管缺乏科学证据。）
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.
不足为奇的是，如果虚假信息与特朗普的名字有关联时，那些支持特朗普的选民们会对此深信不疑。测试之后，被试得到了一个在引用大规模研究“为什么自闭症和疫苗的联系是错的”后的简短的解释，他们被要求重新评估他们的信念。在政治层面，被试现在已经接受了两者有关的言论是错的，但是在一个星期后再次进行的测试表明，他们对错误信息的信念已经反弹到几乎相同的水平。
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，揭穿谎言的证据实际上可能增强了对它们的信念。“人们很可能认为熟悉的信息是真实的。所以不论何时你收回谎言，都将冒着使其变得更加熟悉的风险。讽刺的是，从长期来看，这使撤销不那么有效。”施怀雅-汤普森说。
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.
在我和施怀雅-汤普森谈话不久后，我经历了这个现象。当一个朋友发给我“世界上最腐败的十个政党的排名”的文章链接时，我立即把它发布到一个大约一百名印度的高中朋友的WhatsApp群中。我如此热情的原因是，排名第四的是印度国会党，近几十年来，该党牵连着许多腐败丑闻。我欢呼雀跃，因为我不是它的拥护者。
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，我发现这份包括俄罗斯、巴基斯坦和乌干达的政党的排名，并没有任何指标作为依据。这篇文章来自一个名为BBC Newspoint的网站，听起来像一个可靠的信源，但我发现其与英国广播公司并没有任何联系。于是我向群里的成员道歉，指出这篇文章很可能是一则假消息。
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，这并没有阻止他人在第二天多次将文章转发给其他小组。我意识到我发布的更正没有任何效果。我的许多朋友，因为他们对国会党的反感，都相信这个排名是真实的。每次他们分享这个消息，他们就在不知不觉地，或者明知道是假新闻的情况下，把它推向合法性。打击事实将是徒劳的。
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.
阻碍谎言快速进入生活的最好方法是什么呢？答案并不明了。科技的发展在信任与谎言中将旧时代的冲突与21世纪扭曲相结合，为谎言开辟了一个新的边境。
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