Why do you
think certain nations long for an ancient historical presence on their
territory which is not supported by science?
Does the existence of the internet make theories which are based on
nationalism and politics rather than scientific knowledge more widespread? What can be done to combat this
misinformation? How much is government part
of the solution or part of the problem?
The internet is a dangerous tool when it comes to spreading of ideas. In this case, we can see that a group of people are able to spread misinformation such as “genetics can show things that don’t even exist. For example, the Slavs, for whom there is no historical evidence.” In these sort of debates, real facts found by academics who have studied the topic for a number of years are overshadowed by made up theories or misinformation as seen in the explanation of a well-known archeologist explaining the problems one can find when taking information found from genetic research out of context.
ReplyDeleteI think there is very little realistic things we could do to stop misinformation from spreading. When people use the word misinformation, we straight away tend to think about the internet and the information we can find there. But whenever we have a conversation with someone, and we retell some information that we’ve read somewhere, chances are, some parts will be changed even if that wasn’t the intent. Just because of this, I think stopping misinformation is impossible. The important thing is, that people in high places, who talk to large crowds and who have followers that trust them, have all their facts checked and know what they are talking about. If a random group of people starts commenting random made up facts on the internet, it’s not so dangerous, as long as no big newspaper or politician decides to use that misinformation and present it as a real fact.