Hello, everyone, and welcome to talk nerdy.

Today is Monday, August 18th, 2025, and I'm the host of the show, Dr. Kara Santa Maria. And as always, before we get into

this week's episode, I want to thank those of you who make Talk Nerdy possible. Remember,

this show is and will always be 100% free to download as long as we can keep on making it.

The way we keep it on the air, the like funding strategy so that I can pay

my coordinator and also editor and myself for the time is by using the Patreon model that is the

users who are interested in supporting the show can pledge on an episodic basis at patreon.com slash talk nerdy.

And those of you who either can't afford to or just kind of don't want to, you get the fruits

of that labor for free. And I want to keep going in that direction. And so I really do thank

those of you who are able to support, especially in such a difficult time

where funding isn't there for evidence-based content. Thank you guys so much because we all know

how important truth is right now in this post-truth era. And that brings me to this week's episode because it's the very

topic of the show. I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Pauline W. Hoffman. She has a new book

called Fake News, Witch Hunts and Conspiracy Theory, an Info-Demiologist's Guide to the Truth.

Dr. Hoffman is an infodemologist, as I mentioned,

and we're going to get into exactly what that means in the show. She is also a former academic dean turned entrepreneur, and she, you know, gives talks all over about sort of

this misinformation and disinformation epidemic that we are living in.

And so without further ado, here she is, Dr. Pauline W. Hoffman.

Well, Pauline, thank you so much for joining me today.

Oh, I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.

Of course. So we're

going to be talking about your new book, Fake News, Witch Hunts and Conspiracy Theory, an InfoDemiologist's

...