Category: Misinformation 101

Have you heard of “The Trolley Problem”?

Five people are tied to a train track. A train is coming. You can pull a lever to divert it to another track, but there is one person tied there too.

What do you do?

Option A: Do nothing. Five people die.
Option B: Pull the lever. One person dies, but five are saved.

If Option A feels “safer” to you, you might be experiencing Omission Bias. 

Omission bias is our tendency to see harmful actions as worse than harmful inaction, even when the outcome is similar, or even worse. In other words, causing harm can feel more morally wrong, more blameworthy, than allowing harm to happen (1,2,3). 

In the trolley problem, pulling the lever means someone dies because of something you did. Not pulling it means more people die, but it can feel less direct and less like your fault (1). 

Have you ever bought a book just because it was on the best-seller list? You might have succumbed to the bandwagon fallacy. 

Also called the appeal to common belief or the appeal to popularity, it is used to convince someone that something is true (or untrue) simply because lots of people think it is (1). There is nothing wrong with popular things (popular things are often popular for a reason!), but the fallacy lies in claiming that because it is popular, then it must be true (1,2,3,4,5). It is a mental shortcut: if many people believe it, it is easier for our brain to assume it must be right than to take the time to question and fact check it (4). 

It’s true that more Americans were watching the Sunday game than Canadians: 8.7 million Canadians vs. 26 million Americans, to be exact (1,2). 

Looking at the stats sheet alone, it may seem like Americans care more about hockey than Canadians. But that would be a base rate fallacy. 

The Base Rate Fallacy is the tendency for people to incorrectly judge the likelihood of a situation by benching relevant data. The way data is presented can greatly influence how we perceive it (3,4).

Yes, only 8.7 million Canadians watched the game last Sunday, but there are also only 41.5 million people living in Canada. Compared to the 342.4 million people living in the United-States of America, that nuance matters. It matters because 8.7 million of 41.5 million is 20.9% of the population, while 26 million of 342.4 million is only 7.6% of the American population. Quite a lot of people, but still, not quite as much as Canada (proportion wise!) (5,6). We will take the percentage win. 💪

We hope the American men’s hockey team enjoys their gold, because based on their track record they won’t see another one until the 2070s… 

Come on, what’s hockey without some chirping?!

And remember: Numbers without context? That is a power play for misinformation.

You might have seen videos of people attempting to melt snow from their backyard with a lighter, only to find that the snow doesn’t appear to be melting, but instead looks like it’s burning, turning black and giving off a weird plastic smell. Some even say the snow “looks” unnatural.

We would like to reassure you. Your snow (and theirs) is not fake and is not made of plastics. That doesn’t mean what these people have experienced isn’t true. But, there is a scientific explanation for it (1,2).

The reason people are not seeing the snow dripping away as the flame melts is because the small amount that does melt is immediately sponged up by the remaining snow – essentially, the snowballs are refreezing more densely and shrinking. Instead of melting, the snow could also be undergoing a process called sublimation, where a substance goes directly from solid to gas without ever becoming liquid (1,2,3).

As for the burnt mark on the snow and the bad smell, these come from the combustion of butane from the lighter. As it burns, butane gives off a petroleum-like odor and creates soot, which sticks to the cold snow. The same thing would happen if you put a lighter to a cold glass (1,2,4,5,6).

Now, some videos claim the snow looks unnatural. But in reality, not all snowflakes look like the perfect six-armed shapes we often picture. Snowflakes form around tiny dust or pollen particles, and their final shape depends on temperature and humidity as they fall through the clouds. Warmer temperatures with high humidity produce needle-like crystals, while colder and drier air produces simple hexagonal plates. The classic six-armed snowflakes usually form around −15 to −20 °C with medium to high humidity (7,8).

It’s ok to be surprised when something doesn’t behave the way we expect. That doesn’t mean it’s fake. Questioning our assumptions can push us to look deeper.

Correlation does NOT equal causation. Just because two lines move together on a graph does not mean that one causes the other. More on this in today’s video.

Our site has resources for critical thinking and protecting yourself against misinformation, you can find that here

Last week, Canada lost a national treasure and we wanted to do a tribute in the way we know best.

Please enjoy a few of our favourite Catherine O’Hara moments as misinformer tactics.

Sending love to all those who are feeling this loss 💔