From cartoonist to that’s Dr. Cartoonist to you!~cr
News Release 3-Dec-2019
New game builds resilience against misinformation; ‘inoculates’ users against fake news on climate change; gamifies critical thinking
George Mason University
A George Mason University scientist is developing a mobile game that will teach users to defend themselves from ‘fake news’ on climate change.
ProfessorJohn Cook, an expert on misinformation with Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication, has launched a crowdfunding campaign to enable development of the game, “Cranky Uncle,” for iPhone and Android phones.
Cook has spent over a decade studying different ways to counter misinformation. He is now combining his research into inoculation, critical thinking, cartoon humor, and gamification, into a mobile game.
“Misinformation does great damage to society,” said Professor Cook, a member of Mason’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth. “An essential solution is making the public more resilient against fake news. But how? Gamification is a powerful approach that can potentially reach many millions of people.”
In the game, players are mentored by a cartoon Cranky Uncle who is dismissive of climate science. As they learn to recognize the flaws in Cranky Uncle’s arguments, they gain points. This is based on a behavioral technique called active inoculation.
“Before becoming a scientist, I drew cartoons for a living, “said Cook. “So, imagine my delighted surprise when after a decade of research, I discovered that cartoons were a powerful tool in countering misinformation.”
Cook has tested a prototype of the game in various college classes. “My students appreciated the combination of humor and real-world examples, while I appreciated how engaged they were in learning how to critically think,” said Professor Melanie Trecek-King at Massasoit Community College, Massachusetts. “Learning how not to be fooled is empowering.”
The crowdfunding page is at https://advancement.gmu.edu/crowdfunding-crankyuncle and more information is available at http://crankyuncle.com.
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Websites: http://crankyuncle.com http://skepticalscience.com
Biography
Dr. John Cook is a research assistant professor at George Mason University, founder of the Skeptical Science website, and lead author of a crowd-funded study finding 97% scientific consensus on climate change. He has spent the last decade researching how to counter climate science denial. His PhD into cognitive science found that inoculation, for explaining the techniques of denial, is the key to making the public resilient against misinformation. His research has explored critical thinking and cartoon debunkings (dusting off his skills as a former cartoonist). He is now testing how mobile games can increase critical thinking in classrooms.
About George Mason University:
George Mason University is Virginia’s largest public research university. Located near Washington, D.C., Mason enrolls 38,000 students from 130 countries and all 50 states. Mason has grown rapidly over the last half-century and is recognized for its innovation and entrepreneurship, remarkable diversity and commitment to accessibility. Learn more at http://www.gmu.edu.
About the Center for Climate Change Communication
The Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University develops and applies social science insights to help society make informed decisions that will stabilize the earth’s life-sustaining climate, and prevent further harm from climate change. Learn more about our research and expertise at https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/
About the Institute for a Sustainable Earth
The Institute for a Sustainable Earth at George Mason University connects members of the Mason community with others across the Mason community-and with other communities, policy-makers, businesses and organizations-so that, together, we can more effectively address the world’s pressing sustainability and resilience challenges. Learn more at http://www.ise.gmu.edu
“Before becoming a scientist, I drew cartoons for a living, “said Cook. “So, imagine my delighted surprise when after a decade of research, I discovered that cartoons were a powerful tool in countering misinformation.”
Wow, what a eureka moment that must have been! On the scale of human achievements I put it right up there with reading a Dilbert cartoon about climate change.
Makes one wonder why political cartoons have been so popular ever since printed media was invented. But no, John Cook discovers something unique and interesting, never been noticed before, ever!
I assume this is the same George Mason University where a climate scientist crook was stealing money from his grant money by hiring relatives & donating to his own charity. Compounding the felony, he was also colluding with groups conspiring with states’ attorney generals to restrict constitutional rights of US citizens who resist the myth of climate change.
Yea! Rah! George Mason!
I just donated $10k to Mr Cook’s website.
Now somebody here had a bridge for sale?
That was the King of Wakanda. Sorry, I’ve lost his email.
So Cook has finally managed to find a way to make money from cartooning. After abandoning his career in Astrophysics (his reported PhD having been wound back to a BSc) because of disenchantment with lab work, he attempted for 10 years to sell on line cartoons by subscription https://www.trektoday.com/news/070601_04.shtml while his wife supported them with web design work.
George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication looks like a well funded venue to monetize his Psychology PhD, aquired after his hookup with Stephan Lewandowski. Is it the first academic institution to openly target a political demographic with the Katherine Hayhoe led republicEn program.
https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/republicen/
Skeptical Science is the leading science misinformation site
Name that fallacy!
97% of climate scientists agree there is climate change. We are the only difference from before, therefore, we caused it and must do all we can to fix it NOW!
A. Equivocation
B. Appeal to Authority
C. Bandwagon
D. Single Cause
E. Impossible Expectations
ALARM BELLS…. ?stabilize the earth’s life-sustaining climate? Can you do that? I thought climate always changes. and is desirable. I guess they figured out how to control the sun.
and prevent further harm from climate change? Really? That can be done? We must be living in Paradise!
Climate change is real, irregular, unpredictable, and spectacular.
Climate change forced by carbon dioxide emissions is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction, not viable.
Mobile game…
Wow.
Does this guy know you can play Fortnight on your phone now?
Does this guy know that the ‘gaming industry’ competes with the ‘movie industry’ in terms of audience and financial turnover?
I think I can say with confidence that 97% of people will laugh at this.
Yeah but he can put it on his CV, some activist will give him an award, and his career will advance…
Also, for a Cartoonist he doesn’t seem to understand the basic principles of comic design.
In the example given the two speech bubbles touch with no clear divider. That is comic shorthand for ‘Both these people are talking in unison’.
The intent of this panel is that the window woman has said one thing, and falling guy has replied, but under comic conventions this is not what is being shown.
Sloppy.
“So, imagine my delighted surprise when after a decade of research, I discovered that cartoons were a powerful tool in countering misinformation.”
What better way is there to spread fake science than with the fake reality of cartoons?
“Professor John Cook, an expert on misinformation…”
Well said. John Cook has firsthand experience, being one of the most prolific purveyors of misinformation on climate change.
He is lead author of the fabulous “97% consensus” hoax. His paper claimed 97% of studies of climate science endorsed the view that human emissions are the primary cause of warming. In fact, it was 8.25%.
Of the 11,944 that they sampled which mentioned global warming or climate change, only 986 explicitly endorsed the view that humans are the main reason for global warming. The vast majority, 7,970 papers (67%) took no position. He just counted the papers that explicitly endorsed (986) and explicitly rejected AGW (24). 986 of 1010 is 97%. He ignored the other 10,934 papers because, well, no plausible reason was ever given. Inconvenient truth, perhaps. Cook is a master of cherry-picking and torturing data to advance his story.
Have a look yourself like I did.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024;jsessionid=8EDD19163A68F5120D7C97B307B875A6.c1.iopscience.cld.iop.org
Lecturing us on the
Surely the first thing that would cross the mind of even the worst student is “How the hell is the uncle managing to defy gravity?”.
Ah, but then I realised the cartoons are not aimed at anybody with critical thinking, they are aimed at indoctrinating children.
“Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man. “.
My previous comment hasn’t appeared yet, but here it is in black and white:
Psychology Today:
“Give Us A Kid Till She’s 7 and We’ll Have Her For Life, The kids are not alright”
for the “misinformed” above. John Cook does have a PhD, in psychology.. Professor Stephan Lewandowsky was one of his supervisors… (I’ll leave it at that..) 😉
15 seconds is an 1100 metre drop..
worlds tallest building is 828 metres
So we’re in Bullshit town before we even start….
Maybe all the alarmist hand waving slowed him down a bit.
his phd thesis https://skepticalscience.com/docs/Cook_dissertation.pdf
Proof, if proof were needed, that if his cartoons don’t make you laugh, his thesis will!
Remind me, does PhD stand for Doctor of Philosophy or Phu*ki*g Dope? Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference. Sometimes its easy.
The Center for Climate Change Communication is funded in part by funding from one of the ultral left Rockefeller foundations:
https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/portfolio-view/rockefeller-family-fund/
That suggests to me that Cook is a tool of leftist billionaires and is pushing change that billionaires want.
“Misinformation does great damage to society,” said the biggest peddler of misinformation on the planet.
Of course this came from John Cook. He loves to diagnose skeptics as having mental disorders, but is completely off the reservation himself and doesn’t even realize it. He is delusional beyond any hope of getting him back to reality.
I will down load “Appeal to Authority” today!
This is just evil.
The example shown on the phone is unrealistic, because if the falling man is to hit the ground in 12 to 15 seconds, he would be from 2,304 to 3,600 feet above the ground, which is taller than any existing man-made building on Earth. Maybe Dr. C(r)ook should redraw the building as the edge of the Grand Canyon, but maybe I shouldn’t give him any ideas.
This cartoon app should be called “Climate Change Disinformation for Dummies”, since only the lowest quintile in IQ could be fooled by such garbage, on a lower intellectual level than Greta Thunberg.
The app does give a good idea for the skeptic side–the choice for “Cherry-Picking”, in which the AGW scaremongers are experts. Draw your hockey stick, and don’t let the Medieval Warm Period hit you on the way out.
Yes, but as they say in the PR business (spent some time there before I lost all my humanity):
It doesn’t have to be right.
It just has to be repeated.
On his website, there is a forum which gives an interesting view of the ideas of his crowd. Regarding the surface stations project, someone suggested that instead of posting photo evidence that a station is poorly sited, the person should do “scientific” work (read: computation on guessed numbers) instead: for example recover the power data of A/C and somehow compute the amount of heat that was ejected to the temperature sensor and compute the local temperature without the heating.
And everybody thought the idea was great!
As a rule:
People who never did any scientific work (as opposed to “solving” silly school “problems”), who went to school with the teacher doing ridiculous modeling (let’s assume a ball is sent in the air and there is no air friction…), and who have very little math background (they know how to do a division but hardly know when to do a division), tend to systematically overestimate the power of “science” and what they believe is “math” (which to them is throwing arbitrary numbers in a formula).
At that point I think school is strictly negative in term of intellectual structuration for most people.
“(they know HOW to do a division but hardly know WHEN do a division)” (my emphasis).
Very good point, and same with averages and means.
Here in Ontario the teacher’s unions are on a war footing fighting a conservative government that was elected on the heels of 10 years of liberal government’s deficit spending (i.e., cut backs are looming).
On talk radio and online, the government is hyping the average teacher’s salary ($90,000) which can be reached after 10 years on the job).
Of course, the teacher’s pets (i.e., MSM) try to remind people that averages don’t tell you anything sometimes.
I called into the local talk radio show and asked “does this apply to world temperatures as well?”
For some reason, they didn’t put me on the air…
Maybe there is a copying error (excusable because the author of the drawings has no scientific qualification): it isn’t 12 s or 15 s, it’s 10^12 s and 10^15 s.
Which still makes no difference as the guy will be naturally dead before.