Reality is constructed by the brain, and no two brains are exactly alike
By Anil K. Seth
Cognition
Why Your First Idea Can Blind You to a Better One
While we are working through a problem, the brain’s tendency to stick with familiar ideas can literally blind us to superior solutions
By Merim Bilalić and Peter McLeod
Behavior
How to Think about 'Implicit Bias'
Amid a controversy, it’s important to remember that implicit bias is real—and it matters
By Keith Payne, Laura Niemi and John M. Doris
Behavior
How Misinformation Spreads--and Why We Trust It
The most effective misinformation starts with seeds of truth
By Cailin O'Connor and James Owen Weatherall
Behavior
When Assessing Novel Risks, Facts Are Not Enough
How we make decisions in the face of incomplete knowledge and uncertainty
By Baruch Fischhoff
Behavior
How to Get Better at Embracing Unknowns
How to interpret uncertainty in common forms of data visualization
By Jessica Hullman
Behavior
Which Experts Should You Listen to during the Pandemic?
It should be a no-brainer: your best bet is to follow those who have actual expertise
By Nathan Ballantyne and David Dunning
Computing
Misinformation Has Created a New World Disorder
Our willingness to share content without thinking is exploited to spread disinformation
By Claire Wardle
Behavior
Why Social Media Became the Perfect Incubator for Hoaxes and Misinformation
Data scientists are studying how information spreading online influences our social dynamics and what, if anything, can be done to smooth polarization
By Walter Quattrociocchi
Behavior
The Shared Past That Wasn't
How Facebook, fake news and friends are altering memories and changing history
By Laura Spinney
Computing
Clicks, Lies and Videotape
Artificial intelligence is making it possible for anyone to manipulate audio and video. The biggest threat is that we stop trusting anything at all
By Brooke Borel
Computing
How to Defraud Democracy
A worst-case cyberwarfare scenario for the 2020 American presidential election
By J. Alex Halderman and Jen Schwartz
Behavior
Are Toxic Political Conversations Changing How We Feel about Objective Truth?
As political polarization grows, the arguments we have with one another may be shifting our understanding of truth itself
By Matthew Fisher, Joshua Knobe, Brent Strickland and Frank C. Keil
Behavior
Post-Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed
If politicians can lie without condemnation, what are scientists to do?
By Kathleen Higgins and Nature magazine
Behavior
Why People "Fly from Facts"
Research shows the appeal of untestable beliefs and how they lead to a polarized society
By Troy Campbell and Justin Friesen
Behavior
People Drawn to Conspiracy Theories Share a Cluster of Psychological Features
Baseless theories threaten our safety and democracy. It turns out that specific emotions make people prone to such thinking
By Melinda Wenner Moyer
Behavior
Corruption Is Contagious
Dishonesty begets dishonesty, rapidly spreading unethical behavior through a society
By Dan Ariely and Ximena Garcia-Rada
Behavior
How to Overcome Antiscientific Thinking
Convincing people who doubt the validity of climate change and evolution to change their beliefs requires overcoming a set of ingrained cognitive biases
By Douglas T. Kenrick, Adam B. Cohen, Steven L. Neuberg and Robert B. Cialdini
Policy
How Professional Truth Seekers Search for Answers
Nine experts describe how they sort signal from noise
By Brooke Borel
Policy
The Significant Problem of P Values
Standard scientific methods are under fire. Will anything change?
By Lydia Denworth
Behavior
Why People Refuse to Believe Scientists
It has nothing to do with science itself
By Katharine Hayhoe and Jen Schwartz
Biotech
Can Scientists Convince the Public to Accept CRISPR and Gene Drives?
Scientists are trying new ways to win over a skeptical public
By Brooke Borel
Special Report
Innovations In
Cognition
How Much Can We Know?
The reach of the scientific method is constrained by the limitations of our tools and the intrinsic impenetrability of some of nature's deepest questions
By Marcelo Gleiser
Departments
From the Editor
21st-Century Gaslighting
The Science Agenda
Everyone Is an Agent in the New Information Warfare
Anti Gravity
Even If We Knew Everything That Can Be Known, We Wouldn't Know It All
Opinion
The Truth about Scientific Models
The Intersection
More Data Don't Necessarily Help You Make Small Decisions
