Can you tell which of the following statements are true and which are false?
COVID-19 is not a threat to younger people, and only those who have other medical conditions are dying from it.
The mRNA vaccines developed to prevent the coronavirus alter your genes, can make your body "magnetic," and are killing more people than the virus itself.
President Joe Biden's climate change plan calls for a ban on meat consumption to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen.
If you guessed that all of these claims are false, you're right ― take a bow. Not a single one of these statements has any factual support, according to scientific research, legal rulings, and legitimate government authorities.
And yet public opinion surveys show millions of Americans, and others around the world, believe some of these falsehoods are true and can't be convinced otherwise.
Social media, politicians and partisan websites, TV programs, and commentators have widely circulated these and other unfounded claims so frequently that many people say they simply can't tell what's objectively true and not anymore.
So much so, the authors of a fascinating new research study have concluded we are living in a "post-truth era," with baseless beliefs and subjective opinions given a higher priority than verifiable facts.