Denial of Science

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

by sanj • 15 years ago

45 19 15 years ago

m.motherjones.com

ChuckMcM2• 15 years ago

"Given the power of our prior beliefs to skew how we respond to new information, one thing is becoming clear: If you want someone to accept new evidence, make sure to present it to them in a context that doesn't trigger a defensive, emotional reaction."

This was a fascinating read. I've snipped out what I consider the bonus quote above because I run into it so often. If someone is engaged in an issue emotionally then having a rational discussion with them becomes problematic at best.

Here on HN we've seen the nuclear power and currency discussions which both clearly have an emotional component.

I was a bit annoyed that the article focused a bit much on the climate discussion, clearly it is the one the author has the most emotion invested in :-) I think my views on it are pretty well known so I won't bother going into that.

But that brings us to the subtext, which is that emotions interfere with reasoning. You react emotionally before you react rationally (purportedly because it made evolutionary sense to do so). On the show 'Big Bang Theory' the character Sheldon Cooper is a stereotype of a brilliant, OCD, Asberger's Syndrome scientist. That stereotype works because it seems fairly common that technologists, as a population, have a higher incidence of folks who have a difficulty emotionally interacting with other humans. It makes me wonder if this could be the mechanism by which breakthrough science and/or technology gets done.

yummyfajitas2• 15 years ago

If someone is engaged in an issue emotionally then having a rational discussion with them becomes problematic at best.

What I find most ironic about the article is that they seem to go out of their way to induce many of their readers to react emotionally to the article.

The first few paragraphs compare climate skeptics and the Seeker cult. Most of the examples given are misconceptions held only by people on the political right. Places where the political left is simply wrong (no, I won't derail the conversation by mentioning them explicitly) are ignored, except for one minor example included to feign objectivity.

Did the author really think his article wouldn't lead most readers to react emotionally (the comments suggest they did)? Was he completely unable to think of neutral examples besides vaccines->autism?

This article seems perpetually relevant: http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/

thaumaturgy4• 15 years ago

> What I find most ironic about the article is that they seem to go out of their way to induce many of their readers to react emotionally to the article.

I think "out of their way" is a stretch, but, of course it did. It had to present the topic in a way that would be compelling to readers. If you think anthropogenic global warming is bunkem, then the use of terms like "denier" is going to be a trigger for you. If you think that vaccines cause autism, then you'll find similar terminology, and have a similar trigger.

Regardless of the issue or which side of the issue that you're on, if you had an emotional reaction to the article, then that mostly just proved it right on the actual subject that it was talking about: that people react emotionally, not logically, when their convictions are confronted.

jokermatt999• 15 years ago

If anyone is qualified to speak about politics and science denial, it would be Chris Mooney.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republican_War_on_Science

Yes, he has examined science denial on the left as well.

As for his examples, he regularly writes on climate change denial, and it's also the most prominent example of what he's talking about.

Edit: corrected obvious typo

burgerbrain2• 15 years ago

Extremely well written article, though I'm not convinced it really tells anything new to someone who has had experience dealing with these sorts of people.

skunkworks• 15 years ago

"These sorts of people" is an interesting way to distance ourselves from this, as though we the tech-enlightened were somehow hardened against weaving our reasoning through the maze so that it reaches our predetermined conclusion.

I actually caught myself doing this last week while I was writing a response to a HN comment. I was emotionally invested in my assertion (that fat people are fat because they overeat, rather than the overeating being a symptom of some people's propensity to store more fat). It started out with constructing an argument that satisfied my conclusion, and each time I encountered some thought-roadblock, I diverted traffic down an alternate street. After several times of doing this, it dawned on me just how disingenuous this entire process was becoming, so I decided the better attitude is that of a fence sitter: committed to hearing future arguments from both sides -- made by people who are smarter than I, no less -- and then deciding which argument was more convincing.

yakto• 15 years ago

It's been said in many ways by many authors, but this has helped me: "Imagine everyone is enlightened, except you. Then try to figure out what they were sent to teach you."

sanj• 15 years ago

We are these sorts of people.

burgerbrain2• 15 years ago

Surely you cannot deny that some people seem to have more of a tenancy to lean towards non-scientific thinking than others.

Everybody is rude on occasion, but only some people are rude people.

justina1• 15 years ago

I like how the comments (on mj.com) go off on crazy ideological tangents as if only to prove the article's point.

thaumaturgy4• 15 years ago

I'm mostly going to side-step criticisms of the article (I enjoyed it), because, ironically, it will present itself as emotionally-charged to most people that read it.

Instead, if anybody's interested in trying to limit the effects of this kind of psychology in themselves, I think there's a way to do it that involves a subtle but persistent shift in your state of mind. I think I first read about it in, of all things, "How to think like Leonardo da Vinci" many years ago. The trick is to drop all of your personal desire in being right, and instead adopt a sort of state of constant curiosity. Put less effort into defending your views, and more effort into trying to learn something from everyone and everything around you.

I was a conservative Republican. Now I'm closer to a liberal (I prefer "progressive") Democrat. I used to be a climate "skeptic"; now I think the majority of the science behind the theories is solid, although there's certainly a lot of room for more research. I've flipped on some things several times; the important thing, to me, is not my opinion on them, but whether I'm still open to new information in the field. For example: I used to believe that wind farms were a subsidized waste because all of the energy costs of production and maintenance must eclipse the energy they produce, especially when half of them don't seem to be turning ever. Then I got curious at how the numbers actually worked out, and found that, in terms of EROI, they seem to be one of the most efficient sources of energy we've got. If something else comes along that presents new information, I like to think that I'll be open to re-considering my opinion on it, because mostly, I'm intensely curious about what the truth of the issue really is -- even if I never discover the "truth" about it.

It's taken me a while to change my thinking this way, and I still haven't gotten it 100%. I still can get charged-up about some things, but, much less so than I used to.

rgarcia• 15 years ago

Well said. I'm curious about your decision to affiliate with a political party in light of your approach to avoiding these psychological pitfalls. Personally I try to avoid thinking of myself as either liberal or conservative in order to avoid the same pitfalls that you describe, i.e. by affiliating with a party, to some extent you close yourself off to considering certain viewpoints (out of a desire for your party to be right).

thaumaturgy4• 15 years ago

Yeah, that's fair. I decided to become politically active because I have certain values, and I would like to live in a society that values the same things I do. e.g,. equality, high socioeconomic mobility, education, etc.

It didn't look like society would do those things on its own, and if I criticized it for not doing those things but didn't at the very least vote on issues and candidates, then I was a hypocrite.

Given the things that I value, the Democrats more often at least claim to represent them. In California at the time, I had to register with one of the two major parties, or my voting options would be seriously limited. Thankfully, this just got fixed during the last election cycle.

I'm totally disillusioned by politicians, though. The only candidate for any political office that I've had strong positive feelings about since I started voting was Brown, and that was mostly based on what I found of his track record and what I think this state needs.

So I chose a political party out of necessity, and because even though I consciously try to hold my convictions lightly, I do still have some.

But I would still feel an overwhelming urge to wash after shaking a politician's hand.

kenjackson• 15 years ago

This article does apply greatly to HN, being a discussion board. Like the author states, I often tend to find myself reacting emotionally to arguments made. But one thing I do find that I also do is synthesize the arguments over time.

It has happened several times where I've completely flip flopped my position over the span of a week or two. It's rarely apparent in the context of a given thread, but I do try to really consider the arguments when "offline".

In politics this rarely happens as the ideology underlying the politics is usually more important than the political issue at hand. In tech though, there is a greater chance of discussion actually having real change.

mynameishere• 15 years ago

I wonder why he kept bringing up abortion. Is that a question in any sense solvable by observation, testing, etc? No more than the question of, say, legally requiring the use of child safety seats, though in an extremely opposite sense. Just pandering to his audience, I suppose. There are definitely a few beliefs liberals tend to hold dearly against all evidence, to the point that they would be unthinkable to the author and his audience.

Anyway, political questions are a subject of politics, which is a matter of power and practicality, not all-too academic truth seeking. If imposing carbon credits cuts GDP growth in half, gives vast power to international regulators, and provides Goldman Sachs with another 50 billion dollar-worth trading desk, I can put up with two extra weeks of summer.

jleader• 15 years ago

I think it's interesting how many people react to the article as if it's saying "those other people use emotion rather than rational thought, we're not like them", when it actually says that reasoning and emotion are inseperable. For all of us.

Denial of Science

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