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Corrections are effective for science misinformation

Nature Human Behaviour (2025)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 06 October 2025

The Original Article was published on 15 June 2023

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ARISING FROM M. S. Chan & D. Albarracín Nature Human Behaviour https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01623-8 (2023)

In their impactful pre-registered meta-analysis, Chan and Albarracín1 aimed to determine the degree to which the public updates science-relevant misinformation following a correction. Based on an impressive 75 studies and 245 effect sizes, the authors conclude that “attempts to debunk science-relevant misinformation were, on average, not successful” (d = 0.11; P = 0.142; 95% confidence interval (CI) = −0.04 to 0.26), with the effect of corrections “smaller than those identified in all other areas” (for example, politics and health2). Here we show that the reported null effect was due to the inappropriate pooling of two distinct effect types into a single estimate. This clarification is necessary because meta-analyses are often perceived as the gold standard of evidence, and numerous papers have cited Chan and Albarracín1 as evidence that corrections have little to no effect on science-relevant misinformation (35% by our estimates; Supplementary Table 1).

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Fig. 1: Visual representation of the hypothetical example provided by Chan and Albarracín.
Fig. 2: Visual representation of the effects included in the meta-analysis by Chan and Albarracín.

Data availability

Data are available at Chan and Albarracín’s Open Science Framework Repository at https://osf.io/vkygw/.

Code availability

All relevant code is available from the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/f72ay/.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Network Science Institute, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

    Lucy H. Butler & Briony Swire-Thompson

  2. Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

    Lucy H. Butler & Briony Swire-Thompson

  3. Department of Political Science, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

    Lucy H. Butler & Briony Swire-Thompson

  4. Boston Attention and Learning Laboratory, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA

    Joseph DeGutis

  5. Department of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA

    Joseph DeGutis

  6. School of Medicine and Psychology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Li Qian Tay

  7. School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

    Ullrich K. H. Ecker

  8. Public Policy Institute, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

    Ullrich K. H. Ecker

Authors
  1. Lucy H. Butler
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  2. Joseph DeGutis
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  3. Li Qian Tay
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  4. Ullrich K. H. Ecker
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  5. Briony Swire-Thompson
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Contributions

L.H.B. and B.S.-T. conceptualized and drafted the manuscript. L.H.B. analysed the data. All authors edited and reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lucy H. Butler.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Human Behaviour thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Tables 1 and 2, statistical methods and meta-regression results.

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Butler, L.H., DeGutis, J., Tay, L.Q. et al. Corrections are effective for science misinformation. Nat Hum Behav (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02245-y

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