About this project
We have increasingly sophisticated ways of acquiring and communicating knowledge, yet, paradoxically, we are facing an unprecedented global ignorance crisis that the World Health Organization has declared an 'infodemic.’ This crisis affects our personal and societal well-being, and the stability of our democracies.
The crisis manifests itself in two main ways: First, the spread of misinformation often leads a trusting audience to form irrational beliefs, especially insofar as ordinary citizens are saddled with the difficult task of identifying genuine experts in a polluted information environment. Second, via increasing evidence resistance: even when the relevant information available is reliably sourced and accurate, many information consumers fail to uptake it.
These two manifestations of the ignorance crisis are puzzling, especially in conjunction, since they pull in opposite directions. When we place too much trust in misinformation, it may seem natural to think that we are too trusting and that what we need is to exercise more caution. At the same time, when we place too little trust in high-quality information, it may seem natural to think that we are too cautious and that what we need is to be more trusting.
The trust puzzle is an epistemological puzzle: it is a puzzle regarding the rationality of trust. The situation on the ground, however, is likely the result of a complex epistemic interplay between cognition, emotions, social interaction, and the flow of information. This means that a proper investigation of the phenomenon requires an integrated, epistemologically informed interdisciplinary approach.
