  The current public sense of anxiety in dealing with disinformation as
manifested by so-called fake news is acutely displayed by the reaction to
recent events prompted by a belief in conspiracies among certain groups. A
model to deal with disinformation is proposed; it is based on a demonstration
of the analogous behavior of disinformation to that of wave phenomena. Two
criteria form the basis to combat the deleterious effects of disinformation:
the use of a refractive medium based on skepticism as the default mode, and
polarization as a filter mechanism to analyze its merits based on evidence.
Critical thinking is enhanced since the first one tackles the pernicious effect
of the confirmation bias, and the second the tendency towards attribution, both
of which undermine our efforts to think and act rationally. The benefits of
such a strategy include an epistemic reformulation of disinformation as an
independently existing phenomenon, that removes its negative connotations when
perceived as being possessed by groups or individuals.
