The notions of ”alternative facts” and fake news have rapidly become viral. Although research on receptivity to falsehoods is useful, there is also a problem here. These notions are often used for ideological rather than scientific purposes—the real facts of the ingroup tribe are pitted against the lies of the other tribes. We need more research that focuses not on what facts people subscribe to but on how they engage with evidence and arguments, and how to promote a more scientific (as opposed to ideological or tribalist) attitude among the public. One interesting new line of research focuses on the notion of receptivity to bullshit, which the philosopher Harry Frankfurt…