I’ve got a new piece in the Boston Globe‘s Ideas section, on a bleak, but nonetheless extremely interesting phenomenon. Researchers have discovered that when someone believes something that is provably false, giving them the correct information might make them believe the falsehood even more. As anyone who has ever engaged in a debate with the type who sends a great deal of political chain emails, this comes as little surprise. But still, it’s rather amazing to see if measured, and replicated, in a political-scientific setting. And did I add it’s sort of a bummer?
Update: This one turned out to have some legs on it. The Times, Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan, the Encyclopedia Britannica blog, Brendan Nyhan (whose research lies at the heart of the piece), The Monkey Cage (a great economics blog), MediaMatters, NPR, and others have weighed in. Also, Matt Yglesias pointed out that this isn’t new because Americans have never been an informed citizenry when it comes to their government–and as I pointed out in the story, this is whoppingly true–however, you need to make a distinction between uninformed and misinformed. Uninformed people will listen, misinformed people probably won’t. This is why this research is so interesting. It works from the premise that the problem in America isn’t uninformed voters, but misinformed ones.
A bummer, sure, but it’s good to at least keep this in mind. How much breath gets wasted by people trying to convince other people they’re wrong by spouting data?
Good work!
“Vincible” and “Invincible” ignorance” are old concepts but it’s nice to have documentation to move them out of the realm of moral theology and into secular application.
I’m one of those people that others might accuse of spouting disinformation across the web. However, reflecting on what you say about
the importance of factual information in a democracy I thought it to be a sword that cuts both ways. When it comes to science, that too
is a ‘government’ of a sort that spruiks its own “weapons of mass destruction” when it comes to bullying the public. As Michael Crichton
used to say, “If it it consensus, it is not science) . Facts, it appears, can be copyrighted. ‘My
facts’ are different from ‘your facts’, and you have no right to try to appropriate them.
In Earth science (my own area of interest), the ruling paradigm (plate tectonics) is unashamedly based on a series of assumptions. yet
most will deny this and regard those assumptions as facts, and label anyone who says otherwise ‘crank’. It seems to me that far more
than politics ( in which there are at least buttons that can be pushed that will allow different views to be aired — albeit ones not based in
fact) , the behemoth of Science Consensus has got that base covered. It brooks no dissent, and the system of peer review is set up to
make sure of it:- (quote) ….”The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of
discovering the acceptability — not the validity — of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer
review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But
we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant,
occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong”. (Google or a wordstring) But nobody seriously doubts our ‘knights in
white satin’, do they? ..with their continual cry for “More research is needed”? The public probably regards this as money well spent,
but poke them (scientists) with a fact and see what happens. Craig Venter remarks: “I think the way science is conducted around the
world, we probably waste over 90% of the money, …” but how soon is this forgotten or disregarded against the myth of scientific
truth-telling?. The ‘emails’ too turn out to be just a mote in the eye of Global Warming. And who cares anyway? With a finger on the
real issue here even the Seychelles are opportunisitically trying to cash in on it to get funding to build concrete walls all around their
beautiful tourist islands (…construction maybe being not so much the issue as the funding.)
In ten years of my own internet come-ons to debate the issues in Earth science, from wheedling, through ridicule, to bullish agression,
and with about two (or maybe three) execptions (maybe), not once has there been any uptake of those points at issue on grounds of fact
- only ad hominems and ‘crank-sport’. Why bother? Well I regard it as a mirror, reflecting exactly your point:- That the ones most
likely to be the most informed in matters of fact are the ones least likely to shift their views. For my part, as one accused of being ‘crank’
and spreading disinformation, it’s been an experience I wouldn’t have missed for quids, as an object lesson on many levels.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee, .. Tweedledee had a spruiker in his Minster of Spin:- …”It’s not me telling lies, it’s you who’s not getting
the big picture..” (It’s how it’s done, I guess, if you can – (spin). Tweedledum (Bush) had his own appeal – inarticulate confabulations
that people could take to mean anything they wanted. Both knew what all politicians massaging the ‘Art of the Possible’ do, that facts
pale in the face of belief. And science, with its goal of monolithic consensus proves exactly that. Which is I think what you are saying.
I’m just adding, “..and nowhere is this more true than in the area of career science.” Which is another caution to the environmetally
challenged flower of democracy.
Thanks for your piece.