The man who studies the spread of ignorance

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160105-the-man-who-studies-the-spread-of-ignorance

by lnguyen • 11 years ago

134 104 11 years ago

pizza• 11 years ago

Perhaps relevant: Predicting Successful Memes using Network and Community Structure. http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.6199

fffrad• 11 years ago

One of the problems is that facts are usually presented in the most boring ways, think lectures. Facts, should be spread the same way. Using propaganda, using sex, using means as creative as those who decide to spread false information.

Next time you watch a speech by Donald Trump, don't look at him, look at the faces of the people behind him. He is winning them emotionally, not factually.

Maybe all scientists and researchers should take classes in creative writing, fiction, and speech.

Swizec2• 11 years ago

As many people have said: Good stories are true, not factual.

True. Not factual.

A lot of us in the sciences forget that the distinction exist. Or worse, want to pretend it doesn't.

davidwihl• 11 years ago

As Farley Mowat, the Canadian novelist, said: "I never let the facts get in the way of the truth!"

Also relevant: Lee McIntyre's book on willful ignorance in the Internet age. With so many facts readily at hand, the flip side of agnotology is an audience who decides to stay ignorant in the face of contrary facts.

http://www.amazon.com/Respecting-Truth-Willful-Ignorance-Int...

TeMPOraL10• 11 years ago

I'd like to think of it as general population operating under a different definition of the word "truth".

mobiuscog• 11 years ago

The film 'Big Fish' is a great example of this.

TeMPOraL10• 11 years ago

That's why I think Gravity, Interstellar and The Martian are the best things that happened for space popularization since 1987 (Star Trek: The Next Generation). They cleared out tons of misconceptions people have about space, while introducing very little of their own (Gravity being the biggest offender) - and they did it in a way that captured the interest of general population. I like the trend of making realistic science fiction, and I hope it continues.

Maybe all scientists and researchers should take classes in creative writing, fiction, and speech.

There's a risk with going too far with that though. A scientist who makes their writing too creative can do more harm than good to the domain, and to public perception of science. The risk increases exponentially if the work is being managed by a creative director - they'll likely take liberties with accuracy in order to make the work more general-population-friendly. Science is a hard thing to explain right. Yes, quite a lot of even the most advanced concepts can be presented simply, but it's a very delicate and precise work, if you want the simplification to be right, and not misleading.

As for space education, Kerbal Space Program is absolutely the best thing ever. It's hard to even count the number of people 12 y.o. and less who are proficient in basic orbital mechanics, math included, thanks to this game. Seeing kids talking about Δv budgets and orbital transfers really warms my heart. The game's realism, combined with fun setting and identifiable characters, makes it a perfect vehicle for teaching physics intuition that is hard to acquire even for professionals. And the best thing? It even teaches hard math the right way!

You don't have to know or learn any math to play KSP and have fun. You can literally eyeball your Mun mission. But as you play you quickly discover the benefits of learning a bit of theory. It makes your rockets more efficient. It makes your maneuvers better. It helps you understand why your ship seems to go away from your space station when you accelerate towards it. Soon, your game turns from this[0] to this[1] (via mods, and yes, all those numbers and plots mean something to you).

[0] http://i.imgur.com/72XNY9q.jpg

[1] http://i.imgur.com/AcpcCqS.png

ageofwant• 11 years ago

So a agnotologist is basically a evil troll ?

I propose a new word: "agnotroll"

"He is a well know agnotroll, you should just ignore his agitprop."

cconcepts• 11 years ago

Is there a name for the effect, or at least percieved effect, that people are becoming less "teachable" because we're so used to just googling stuff that we sometimes percieve ourselves as a fount of knowledge because we mistakenly attribute all the answers to ourselves and not the little gadget in our pocket?

I don't think the Flynn effect is applicable.

SFLemonade• 11 years ago

I would love to know if any research is being done on this. On a comedic note, Bill Burr refers to it as the "www.IAmRight.com effect", where people develop absurd opinions and then just Google sources to support their opinions (rather than the other way around, where they would begin with sources and form a logical opinion from there).

TeMPOraL10• 11 years ago

This remind me of something I learned in high school while doing my math homework. An assignment becomes much easier when you first look at the answer in the back. When you know what to aim for, it's easier to weave the right path from the data to results. You aren't learning much in the process, but technically, you've done the job.

tomp5• 11 years ago

I know it's popular in certain circles to oppose, shame and attack Trump, but when you really think about it, all politicians do this, none of them is using facts in their campaign.

gadders3• 11 years ago

Yeah. I would have used more sympathy for the article if he had used left and right wing examples. As it is, it just comes across as politically motivated (or at least slanted).

ACow_Adonis• 11 years ago

From the article:

"Proctor explains that ignorance can often be propagated under the guise of balanced debate. For example, the common idea that there will always be two opposing views does not always result in a rational conclusion."

So i'm not sure if you're serious, or being ironic...

Either way, that articles have to be "even handed" or present "both sides of the story" is a technique often used by spreaders of ignorance or partisans to deny rational points or treatments of information.

mapt• 11 years ago

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be sarcastic or what. He deliberately calls out false equivalences:

"“This ‘balance routine’ has allowed the cigarette men, or climate deniers today, to claim that there are two sides to every story, that ‘experts disagree’ – creating a false picture of the truth, hence ignorance.”"

smackay• 11 years ago

You should read Scott Adams' posts about Trump, http://blog.dilbert.com. He describes him as a Master Persuader, http://blog.dilbert.com/post/128474925371/how-to-spot-a-wiza....

lukev• 11 years ago

Sure, if you buy into a bunch of NLP pseudoscience.

Or, you could accept the much more straightforward and believable explanation that Trump has unique appeal for racists, xenophobes and those who are extremely frustrated with the conservative establishment. He's the first candidate in a long time to appeal to that bloc; hence his popularity.

Trump isn't even a successful businessman - he'd be wealthier if he'd parked his inheritance in an index fund rather than trying to manage it.

venomsnake• 11 years ago

You must think of trump supporters as in the same state as 1984 O'Brian. They choose their reality willfully.

tomp5• 11 years ago

They choose their reality willfully.

Doesn't everybody?

mahouse• 11 years ago

He appeals to the part of the population that doesn't have a problem agreeing that massive illegal immigration, and especially muslims, put the country in trouble, that China is an enemy, that ISIS must be just banished, etc.

In my opinion it's just a matter of priorities, and how the voter thinks the social and financial crisis should be tackled. How is someone like Hillary cleaner than Trump for example?

eli_gottlieb4• 11 years ago

Illegal immigration from Mexico has turned negative since the Global Financial Crisis and the Great Recession. There is basically no "massive illegal immigration" of Muslims at all.

pjc506• 11 years ago

Trump doesn't care about his proposals being even remotely feasible. He's simply not interested in keeping the discussion within the realms of what people are likely to agree might work in practice.

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/immigration-reform

"Mexico must pay for the wall and, until they do, the United States will, among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards – of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico [Tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also options]. We will not be taken advantage of anymore."

Mexico is never going to pay for the wall. I know it's been standard practice to make Latin American countries pay for US drugs policy, but this is over the top. "Impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages" is in particular going to be a Drugs War x2; how do you identify illegal wages? The gunboat diplomacy thing is likely to do huge damage to US-Mexican relations and probably contradicts NAFTA. Starting a trade war works in both directions: Mexico could start kicking out US companies.

"End birthright citizenship": he's put this under "Defend The Laws And Constitution Of The United States", despite the fact that it directly contradicts the 14th Amendment. This is probably the biggest anti-factual thing in the whole document, as it contradicts itself. It also results in stateless children, and the problem of trying to deport people from the US to Mexico who aren't Mexican nationals either.

"End welfare abuse. Applicants for entry to the United States should be required to certify that they can pay for their own housing, healthcare and other needs before coming to the U.S.": does that apply to tourist visas? Is this the end of the visa waiver programme? Either he's completely serious about ending tourism to America or he's eliding the fact that people will illegally immigrate on tourist visas.

avar• 11 years ago

Not defending Trump's policies or their feasability, but I have a question about this:

    > [Abolishing jus soli] [...] results in stateless children, and
    > the problem of trying to deport people from the US to Mexico who
    > aren't Mexican nationals either.

If the US abolished birthright citizenship and a child were born to Mexican parents in the U.S. isn't that child eligable for Mexican citizenship? Birthright citizenship isn't a thing in e.g. Europe and that's how this works there, it doesn't result in stateless children, it just results in children needing to be registered in their parent's country of origin.

mason2402• 11 years ago

As if Sanders is putting up proposals that are even remotely feasible.

amelius2• 11 years ago

The biggest problem we have today is that uninformed people form such a large percentage of the voting pool.

The best solution I've heard so far: on the age of 18, you will be given the following choice: a free scooter, or voting rights.

tomp5• 11 years ago

Wasn't this always the case? (Well, as long as there was democracy)

TeMPOraL10• 11 years ago

It probably was, but the world was less complex back then (both because of the technological progress of the last two centuries, and because politics has layered tons upon tons of bullshit on every issue imaginable).

golergka• 11 years ago

When democracy wasn't available to everyone because of discrimination, the same discrimination was also in effect in access to education — so those who voted had better education than those who didn't.

Just to clarify, in case this comment will be read by idiots: discrimination is bad. Votings rights are good. Access to education for everyone is good. If you're thinking that I argue for return to "good old times of racism and sexism", you're a moron.

(You would think that people aren't as stupid as to misunderstand such comment. Unfortunately, you would be mistaken).

ZeroGravitas3• 11 years ago

No, the problem back then was more often that a small group of people were relatively well informed and voting in their own narrow interests, but not in the interests of those who didn't yet have the vote.

Once people rioted etc. to actually win the vote, more subtle approaches had to be found to continue doing whatever was in the interests of the well connected few. Having lots of uninformed voters distracted by fluff is one of those tactics.

stdbrouw• 11 years ago

Is it still possible to be an informed citizen? Most laws are the result of work on congressional committees and then voted on according to the party line because even politicians have had to admit that the issues are just too complex to deal with otherwise.

polymatter• 11 years ago

uninformed people form such a large percentage of the voting pool

agreed.

but surely the natural solution is to increase the number of informed people (education, PSAs, 'nudging' people towards being more informed). not to disenfranchise the poor.

amelius2• 11 years ago

not to disenfranchise the poor

The poor often vote against their own interests [1]

So even for the poor, it is better to remove these voters from the voting pool.

[1] http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/opinion-why-the-poor-vote-against...

corin_2• 11 years ago

Sounds like a great solution until you think it through and realise it would just skew politics even further in favour of the wealthy, not necessarily the towards the informed. In some small cases of the population it would work - for example I know people at similar income/background levels to me who would choose the scooter and I know I would choose to vote - but over a whole country it would be massively unfair.

crimsonalucard3• 11 years ago

The smart person goes for the scooter. From an individual standpoint you stand to gain the most from the scooter since your vote is just a drop in a bucket. This is the most rational choice.

Collectively, everyone acting rationally produces unintended results. It's a weird phenomenon logically described here as the tragedy of the commons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons. Even if you try to do something counter-intuitive, whatever choice you make as an individual is still inconsequential in terms of voting.

For example let's say it's time to vote. I live in california and I'm a democrat, the voting is probably gonna go blue anyway regardless of whether or not I vote. So why not choose the scooter?

Let's say I end up choosing the scooter. Then, when the results come out, I realize not enough democrats voted because they all went for the scooter. Thus the state actually ended up being red.

So I decide to take a hypothetical time machine back into time to change my decision. Now I choose to vote Blue instead of get a free scooter. Well guess what? the outcome is still the same; the rest of california still makes the same decision regardless of whether or not I vote. The difference is, in one scenario I have a scooter, in the other scenario I don't have a scooter... every other factor in both outcomes remains the same. Whatever choice I make from an individual standpoint the Logical choice is ALWAYS the free scooter.

In the end to make a better world there needs to be a sort of collective idiocracy, which is kind of what's going on in this thread right now: (You all think you guys are so smart because you didn't go for the scooter).

How about this: free scooter for anyone who votes democrat! That makes more sense (if you're democrat).

ZeroGravitas3• 11 years ago

A decent modern voting system would probably tilt the balance back towards sanity though.

Knowledge of how politics actually works seems to be one of these areas of intentional ignorance.

A popular alternative comedian in the UK tried to argue (correctly) that voting was pointless under our gerrymandered, first-past-the-post, two party system and was broadly ridiculed by the establishment media.

He didn't really argue that well for it, but he's a comedian, the fact that they couldn't really present a valid counterpoint as professional political pundits was depressing.

pyre• 11 years ago

What you are describing is closer to the prisoner's dilemma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

panglott2• 11 years ago

Votes have a small but real value, and this can easily be seen from the fact that corrupt politicians will pay actual money for them. Politicians will pay $10-20 per vote in actual money. That's not huge, but it's not nothing, and it is worth more than a scooter if you do it regularly. http://panglott.blogspot.com/2012/11/votes-are-worth-somethi...

awjr6• 11 years ago

Also I think there are very intelligent people working to keep people in the dark. As an example:

"Transport for London is spending £1 Billion on improving cycle infrastructure."

Sounds brilliant. However.

"Transport for London is spending 0.7% of their yearly budget for the next 10 years on a transport that accounts for 5% of the travel in the city."

"Transport for London are spending £1Billion out of £110Billion budget on cycle infrastructure."

All three statements are true. However the first statement is a better soundbite.

zo1• 11 years ago

By your own comment, the first statement is a better soundbite. That is what they're selling, they're usually not actively trying to "keep people in the dark".

TeMPOraL10• 11 years ago

I guess I see your point, but £1 Billion still sounds like shit ton of money for cycle infrastructure in a city.

pjc506• 11 years ago

of their yearly budget for the next 10 years

This is a pet hate of mine: it's very easy to use it to make a number sound 10 times larger, for good or ill.

tremon2• 11 years ago

I particularly like the Swiss solution: employ topical referenda, and stop insisting that "everyone should vote". I'd rather have 60% of the people abstaining to vote because they don't care or don't know, than having them "sell" their vote to the lowest bidder with the nicest tie.

Especially for a "master of puppets"/figurehead election like POTUS, the problem isn't "too many uninformed people", it's "too many topics in a single vote". Even assuming 90% of your voters are knowledgeable about 90% of the issues, they can't express any of their knowledge in that single button or pencil stroke.

The same is true for trying to "divine" meaning to the votes cast, as well: since every voter only expressed a single button press, it's easy to dismiss votes that don't align with your own views as uninformed.

You want elections with depth? Don't make voting mandatory (either socially or legally), and use topical voting instead of figurehead voting.

laotzu2• 11 years ago

use topical voting instead of figurehead voting.

This is entirely feasible now with the internet. One of the primary assumptions which led to to the design of a representative republic which we have on paper was that it was impossible for everyone to assemble in order to vote on laws:

In a large society, inhabiting an extensive country, it is impossible that the whole should assemble to make laws. The first necessary step, then, is to depute power from the many to a few of the most wise and good.

-John Adams, Thoughts on Government

bpires• 11 years ago

Referendums don't really solve anything. Here are some of the questionable ones that have passed:

1.Minarets can no longer be built in Switzerland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_minaret_referendum,_2009 2. Immigration quotas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_immigration_referendum,_...

I'm not an european citizen, have a job offer to work in a big tech company in Zurich and will not be able to get a visa even though I've got my Bachelors and Masters degree in Europe. Since the referendum passed, they're now requiring 3 years full-time work experience regardless of which education degree you hold.

eli_gottlieb4• 11 years ago

The biggest problem we have today is that uninformed people form such a large percentage of the voting pool.

Considering that 90% of voters have basically zero influence on the government, I think we wish that was our biggest problem.

mason2402• 11 years ago

51% of the voters control 100% of government.

puppetmaster3• 11 years ago

Here is some ignorant voters on video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=oKosd0xJadE

specialist• 11 years ago

Have you lobbied your government? Contacted your representatives? Attended public hearings?

Regard collaborative policy making as a form of data processing and you will recognize the triage processes used (by necessity).

Social cognition as applied to intractable complexity. Divide and conquer, just like economic specialization, is a problem solving optimization.

Aka, The Politics of Attention.

Direct democracy doesn't scale, copes poorly with subtleties. Representative democracy works pretty well, considering. But always benefits from more people participating.

outlace• 11 years ago

The best solution is to teach people how to think and not what to think.

We need to promote reason, promote awareness of cognitive biases (as a result of our evolutionary past), and rid ourselves of this notion that "standing up for what you believe" (regardless of its validity) is somehow a virtue.

crimsonalucard3• 11 years ago

I would say that the ignorance comes from unverified 3rd party sources. But isn't that where actual knowledge comes from? In the end we all put faith on other experts and choose to believe what they tell us is true. To this day I cannot for the life of me prove that we went to the moon or that global warming is real without citing sources created by other "experts."

So really I can't blame ignorant people. I only believe in global warming over the other opposing claims made by corporate sponsored studies only because one conclusion seems more likely then the other. I cannot definitively say that I believe in global warming because the logic categorically says it is true. There rarely exists any logic that tells me a=c because b=a and b=c, if you catch my drift.

I've only found such logic to exist for atheism. Yet a good number of people in this world are still ignorant in that regard.

dawnbreez2• 11 years ago

Given the position these people take, it's easy to assume that you can solve this by taking away the right of certain people to vote.

The problem is that this concentrates the power in the hands of a few, who can be manipulated by more traditional means.

The man who studies the spread of ignorance

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