Vaccinating Your Brain: The Science of Misinformation Defense @NCASVideo

Uploaded February 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago

What if you could vaccinate your brain against fake news and conspiracy theories?
Cognitive scientist and creator of the Cranky Uncle game, Dr. John Cook, explains how psychological “inoculation” helps people resist misinformation—especially on polarizing topics like climate change, COVID-19, and vaccines.

In this talk for the National Capital Area Skeptics, Dr. Cook draws on inoculation theory, explaining how exposing people to a weakened form of misinformation—paired with critical thinking—can build “cognitive immunity.”

Learn how rhetorical tricks like fake experts, cherry-picking, and logical fallacies are used to manipulate us—and how to fight back.

Topics include:
--Why misinformation about climate change resonates more strongly with conservatives
--The psychological mechanisms that make us susceptible to misinformation
--The FLICC framework: Common tactics like fake experts, logical fallacies, and cherry-picking
--Using cartoons and games—like Cranky Uncle—to teach critical thinking skills
--Understanding our cognitive vulnerabilities and building resilience against deception

Try the Cranky Uncle game: crankyuncle.com
Learn more about inoculation theory: misinformationaged.org

More detail: The public are overwhelmed with misinformation and conspiracy theories, causing confusion about important issues such as climate change, vaccination, and COVID-19. How do we respond to the firehose of falsehoods? One way to effectively neutralize the influence of misinformation and pseudoscience is logic-based inoculation. This applies the idea of vaccination to knowledge—we can build immunity to misinformation by exposing people to a weakened form of misinformation. In other words, explain the misleading techniques used in misinformation. Dr. John Cook will outline his psychological and critical thinking research into inoculation and how he has used gamification and cartoons to overcome some of the psychological hurdles facing scientists and educators.

John Cook is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at Monash University. His research focus is on using critical thinking to build resilience against misinformation. In 2007, he founded Skeptical Science, a website that won the 2011 Australia Museum Eureka Prize for the Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge. In 2020, he published the book Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change applying critical thinking, inoculation research, and cartoons to engage and educate readers about climate misinformation. He recently released the Cranky Uncle game, combining critical thinking, cartoons, and gamification to build players’ resilience against misinformation. He currently works with organizations like Facebook and NASA to develop evidence-based responses to climate misinformation.

Views expressed in this presentation are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Capital Area Skeptics (NCAS).

#Misinformation #CriticalThinking #ScienceDenial #ClimateChange #Psychology #FLICC #CrankyUncle #JohnCook #CognitiveScience #Debunking #Gamification #ScienceCommunication #AI #ConspiracyTheories #LogicalFallacies

Vaccinating Your Brain: The Science of Misinformation Defense

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