Should universities remove online courses that contain incorrect or misleading information?
There are lots of scientific controversies where different scientists have conflicting views. Eventually these controversies will be solved by normal scientific means involving evidence and logic but for the time being there isn't enough data to settle a genuine scientific controversy. Many of us are interested in these controversies and some of us have chosen to invest time and effort into defending one side or the other.
But there's a dark side of science that infects these debates—false or misleading information used to support one side of a legitimate controversy. To give just one example, I'm frustrated at the constant reference to junk DNA being defined as non-coding DNA. Many scientists believe that this was the way junk DNA was defined by its earliest proponents and then they go on to say that the recent discovery of functional non-coding DNA refutes junk.
I don't know where this idea came from because there's nothing in the scientific literature from 50 years ago to support such a ridiculous claim. It must be coming from somewhere since the idea is so widespread.
Where does misinformation come from and how is it spread?