Why Melanie Trecek-King Wrote ‘A Field Guide to Spotting Misinformation’
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2026/04/25
Melanie Trecek-King is a science educator, speaker, and writer focused on critical thinking, science literacy, and Misinformation. She is the creator of Thinking Is Power, Associate Professor of Biology at Massasoit Community College, Education Director for the Mental Immunity Project, and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Melanie Trecek-King about why she wrote A Field Guide to Spotting Misinformation and how years of teaching science to non-majors reshaped her mission. Trecek-King argues that people need evaluative skills, not just more facts, to navigate falsehoods online. Using examples such as creationism, Ed Graves, and Leon Festinger’s Seekers, she explains how identity, cognitive dissonance, and motivated reasoning sustain pseudoscience and science denial among many audiences in modern public life.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I will ask the cliché question: Why did you write the book?
Melanie Trecek-King: I wrote the book I wanted to read. I wrote it to help me understand the information environment. Do you want the longer answer? It is more interesting.
Jacobsen: Of course.
Trecek-King: I have spent the last couple of decades teaching in a college science classroom. I am a biologist, and I specialize in teaching non-majors, students who are not planning to become scientists but still need to take a science course.
I tried many ways to make the material useful and engaging. It was frustrating that I could not get them to care. I remember standing in front of the class teaching the cell cycle and cancer, explaining how cancer is a disruption in the cell cycle, and seeing that they were overwhelmed.
I realized that many of them would memorize the material, reproduce it on an exam, and then forget it, likely leaving with the same or greater dislike of science. More importantly, I realized that my students already had access to vast amounts of information through their phones. If they needed to know about prophase or proto-oncogenes, they could look them up instantly.
However, they were also one click away from Misinformation about cancer. What they needed was not more information; they needed the ability to understand and evaluate the information available to them.
That realization changed my teaching and ultimately led to the book. I wanted to help students understand what they are seeing and why, distinguish between reliable and unreliable information, misinformation, and find trustworthy sources when needed.
Too often, people use search engines to feed their confirmation bias, leading them to information that reinforces what they already believe. If the goal is to find reliable information, you need to understand how information works and how your own beliefs shape your interpretation.
I also recognized the importance of including Misinformation in teaching. Educators often avoid it and focus only on accurate information. However, Misinformation can be a powerful tool for learning how to evaluate evidence. If students do not engage with false or misleading claims in a structured environment, they may struggle to recognize them elsewhere.
Incorporating this approach made the material more engaging and useful. I realized that these skills are essential not just for students but for everyone navigating the modern information environment. That is why I wrote the book.
Jacobsen: What is a key story in the book where pseudoscience converges and creates significant negative impacts?
Trecek-King: In the book, I define pseudoscience and science denial as opposite sides of the same coin. Pseudoscience is the belief in something unsupported or unscientific, while science denial is the rejection of well-supported scientific evidence. They often occur together.
For example, I grew up as a young Earth creationist. That is pseudoscience; it lacks evidence and its core claims are not falsifiable. At the same time, I was denying science. Evolutionary theory is one of the most unifying frameworks in biology; it explains patterns across all life sciences. To reject it, I had to replace it with creationism. The two reinforced each other.
Many examples in the book follow this pattern. At their root, these beliefs often reflect what we want or do not want to believe. People adopt pseudoscience because they want something to be true, a miracle cure, or communication with deceased loved ones. Conversely, people deny science because they do not want certain conclusions to be true.
Avoiding both requires self-awareness. It means understanding our motivations. Some of the most dangerous cases, such as the Ed Graves story, involve identity-defining beliefs. These are tied to who we are, our communities, and our sense of meaning. Rejecting them can feel like losing part of oneself.
In my case, moving away from creationism meant distancing myself from a community that held values I no longer accepted, including misogyny. Realizing I was wrong was freeing, but it also meant losing those connections. That is a significant barrier for many people.
If I want readers to engage deeply with these ideas, at the level of identity, emotion, and worldview, I cannot confront their core beliefs directly. That would trigger defensiveness and shift focus to conclusions rather than process. Instead, I use examples that are historical, humorous, or culturally distant, cases people are unlikely to hold personally. This allows them to practice critical thinking skills without becoming defensive. I hope they will then apply those skills to their own beliefs.
Jacobsen: Many specific examples illustrate that pseudoscience and science denial are distinct yet overlapping phenomena that often reinforce each other. What motivates people to continue denying well-established scientific concepts or to persist in pseudoscientific beliefs? There may not be a single answer, but there are likely general principles people can follow.
Trecek-King: One of my favourite stories in the book speaks directly to this, and it is far less heavy than the Ed Graves example. Are you familiar with the work of Leon Festinger?
In the early 1950s, there was a woman named Dorothy Martin, a housewife who believed she was a psychic. She practiced automatic writing, claiming to receive messages which she wrote down. She initially believed she was communicating with her deceased father, and later with other entities. Eventually, she claimed to receive messages from “Sananda,” whom she identified as an extraterrestrial being from the planet Clarion and equated with Jesus.
Sananda instructed her to gather a group of followers, known as the Seekers, to receive and share these prophecies. According to the messages, the world would soon be destroyed by a catastrophic event, such as a flood or earthquake, but extraterrestrials would rescue the Seekers in a flying saucer.
This story attracted media attention. Leon Festinger, a social psychologist, became interested in what would happen when the prophecy failed. He and his colleagues infiltrated the group to observe their behaviour over time.
The group prepared for rescue, following specific instructions, such as removing metal objects they believed could interfere with the spacecraft. As the predicted date approached, members made significant sacrifices, including leaving jobs and distancing themselves from family, and fully committed to the belief that the world would end.
There were false alarms, including a prank phone call from someone claiming to be “Captain Video,” a reference to a contemporary television character, which the group did not recognize as a hoax. They continued to wait for rescue, adjusting explanations when predictions failed.
On December 21, the predicted date of destruction, the group gathered, expecting validation. When nothing happened, the mood shifted from excitement to confusion, then to distress. Members had invested deeply in the belief and faced the possibility of being wrong.
After several hours, Martin reported receiving a new message: their faith and dedication had saved the world from destruction. This reinterpretation allowed the group to maintain their beliefs despite the failed prediction.
This case became a foundational example of cognitive dissonance, the process by which individuals reconcile conflicting beliefs and evidence, often by reinterpreting reality to preserve their existing worldview.
Here is the key point. People often do not change their minds, especially when there are clear costs to maintaining a belief. Leon Festinger developed the theory of cognitive dissonance to explain the discomfort that arises when reality conflicts with what we believe or how we act.
In this case, the group resolved that tension through motivated reasoning. They used their reasoning abilities to justify their beliefs, constructing explanations that allowed them to remain “correct.” The strength of their commitment mattered. They had invested their reputations, relationships, and resources. They could not afford to be wrong. One follower, a college professor, reportedly expressed that he had sacrificed too much to accept being wrong.
Jacobsen: In journalistic work, I have noticed that you rarely convince someone immediately. Instead, you engage them in conversation. They reflect afterward, and over time, their views shift, sometimes significantly, but often incrementally. It is rarely instantaneous.
Trecek-King: It is rarely instantaneous. This story illustrates several important lessons. The more someone has invested in a belief, the harder it is for them to change their mind. The greater the personal stake, the more difficult it becomes to admit error.
This also has implications for how we engage with others. Being wrong in public is difficult and often humiliating. People need space to revise their views. Rather than mocking them, we should allow them the dignity to change their minds.
Another lesson is that persuasion is not primarily about facts. In science education, we often assume that disagreement results from a lack of information, so we provide more facts. However, as a former young Earth creationist, I know that facts alone would not have changed my mind. My beliefs were not grounded in evidence, even though I thought they were.
They were rooted in identity, emotion, and social belonging. When people hold false beliefs, simply presenting facts is often ineffective because the issue is not factual; it is the underlying motivations. If we want to help people revise their views, we must address those deeper factors rather than focusing only on surface-level arguments.
Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Melanie.
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