Why is it seemingly so easy to spread misinformation that large numbers of people readily believe regardless of how nonsensical the information itself is?

 Well, the answer is something that is a very well preserved secret.

It's a secret because people reject it when they are given the information, so it doesn't get retained or shared generally.

The issue has been to explored in psychology and history and philosophy for a very long time.

The book The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think AloneBook by Philip Fernbach and Steven Sloman explores this in depth.

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-knowledge-illusion-full-series-1-16.html

It has extensive evidence that in my opinion supports the hypothesis that we as humans generally overestimate our knowledge and understanding in subjects. This has been explored in other research such as the Dunning-Kruger effect, but most people who hear of that misinterpret it.

They believe the Dunning-Kruger effect means stupid people don't know they are stupid. That's not what the research shows.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is present in EVERYONE regardless of education or intelligence. Many intelligent or highly educated people assume they are immune to this, research has consistently shown that they ARE subject to it, just like everyone else.

We usually only can be highly educated in a few subjects and in those subjects we have limits, limits we can underestimate. In the subjects we are entirely uneducated in or slightly educated in we grossly underestimate our ignorance and lack of understanding. I can't emphasize that enough.

The book Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow has additional evidence and information on this topic.

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2017/11/alternatives-to-scientology-subliminal.html

The book the Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt further explores this and includes his important observation that the human mind has two aptitudes. It is a decent scientist, at times, sorting information to find facts and information that is true from observations and assumptions (we always have assumptions and emotions guiding our thoughts, if our minds are functioning) but the human mind is a superb lawyer, seeking ways to support what it wants to be true and to minimize, deny, or ignore what it does not want. Haidt explained that he realized when he had an argument with up his wife that he was cherry picking parts of the past, and leaving out others, and misrepresented the evidence to support his position.

He realized that his young son would ask “CAN something be true?” if he desired it but asked “MUST it be true?” if he didn't want it.

We all do that and look for any way what we desire to be true to possibly even slightly be supported, maybe, sort of, and look for every way that it isn't absolutely proven beyond all doubt for what we don't want to believe in.

That's the essential problem. We avoid inconvenient truths, and the authors of the Knowledge Illusion discovered that we can see our ignorance if we have to demonstrate HOW things work in the proper sequence, step by step if we have to write it down and then get shown the real way that something works, we can see our ignorance.

They also discovered that showing people their ignorance and proving it them results in the people becoming uncomfortable, feeling confused, and avoiding the people who showed them their ignorance in the future.

When shown our confidence is not justified we tend to dislike he feeling, avoid the people who showed us this unpleasant reality, and return to our more comfortable ignorance and bliss.

I have written extensively on these topics and books and will include a collection of links.

Critical Thinking

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/02/confirmation-bias-can-versus-must.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-fundamental-attribution-error.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2020/11/critical-thinking-development-stage.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2020/11/how-to-think-effectively-six-stages-of.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2020/07/master-list-of-logical-fallacies.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2018/06/scientology-versus-critical-thinking.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/11/in-defense-of-critical-thinking-in-full.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-main-barriers-to-critical-thinking.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-main-barriers-to-critical-thinking_16.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-easiest-person-to-fool.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-easiest-person-to-fool-2-hierarchy.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2018/05/cornerstones-of-critical-thinking-2.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2018/05/cornerstones-of-critical-thinking-1.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2018/05/cornerstones-of-critical-thinking-3.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2018/05/cornerstones-of-critical-thinking-4.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2018/05/cornerstones-of-critical-thinking-6.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2018/05/cornerstones-of-critical-thinking-5.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2018/05/cornerstones-of-critical-thinking-7.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2018/05/cornerstones-of-critical-thinking-8-we.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2018/05/cornerstones-of-critical-thinking-1-8.html

I hope this information helps.