More About "You Are Now Less Dumb"

[rowyn]

I'm reading the chapter about the "backfire effect", which is about how people will reinforce their existing beliefs when presented with evidence that contradicts them. It includes this section on page 151:

Geoffrey Munro and Peter Ditto concocted a series of fake scientific studies in 1997. One set of studies said homosexuality was probably a mental illness. The other set suggested homosexuality was normal and natural. They then separated subjects into two groups. One group said they believed homosexuality was a mental illness, and the other did not. Each group then read the fake studies full of pretend facts and figures suggesting that their worldview was wrong. On either side of the issue, after reading studies that did not support their beliefs, most people didn't report an epiphany, a realization that they'd been wrong all those years. Instead, they said the issue was something science couldn't understand. When asked about other topics later on, such as spanking or astrology, these same people said they no longer trusted research to determine the truth.

Soooo ... let's be clear on this. These researchers lied to their subjects about the results of make-believe studies that never happened. The subjects did not believe the fake research, and said they trusted research in general less after hearing about the fake research.

...

This study pretty much exemplifies not only that people are not persuaded by research, but why they are not persuaded by it. BECAUSE IT COULD BE FAKE AND THEY WOULDN'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. I am not questioning that the backfire effect exists (not only does it fall in line with my own biases, but there are other studies exploring the effect that don't rely on lying about evidence in an effort to prove it). But I do think it's funny that this is used to prove how irrational human biases are, when it's a rare instance of those human biases leading to the correct conclusion: "don't believe these guys, they're either lying or wrong". XD

Comments

[narile.livejournal.com]

One of the main reasons I never fully trust research that does not make all of its methodology and data (That includes data that was 'thrown out' for various reasons) public and known. I might not understand the methodology specifically, but when it is public others will, and will be able to make any criticisms known.

[rowyn]

Yessss. It's hard to feel comfortable with the accuracy of the conclusions any given article or piece of research draws unless I dig deeply into it and it still holds up without a lot of people poking holes in the methodology or choices.

... and most things turn out to be controversial if you dig into them. :/

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if you want someone to have an epiphany telling them a bunch of facts isn't going to do it. Showing them the facts might help if you can do it in a way that's obviously not faked.

Almost everyone has a 'oh my god, people can lie!' moment at some point in their lives and after that 'this person might be making this shit up' is always going to be one of the explanations in the back of their head when anyone tells them anything.

[rowyn]

I was thinking it would be interesting to see what happens if you proved your point with physical evidence instead of just "here's a study on paper". Like proving that unicorns are real by presenting an actual unicorn. I mean,there must have been plenty of people who didn't believe flying machines could work and carry people, but I doubt there were many skeptics left after they saw a plane in action in person. I think we're biased to believe things we can verify with our own senses over things we are told about.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I pretty much assume everything science comes up with these days is either fake or slanted or flawed--sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident. I know people have seen me tweet photos and then jumped over to inform me, very hurriedly, that the picture is a fake! (or the story, or whatever). And I always say, 'I never thought it was real. I just thought it was a nice picture/story.' Because pictures and stories can have a value over and above their truthfulness.

I feel sad, a little, when I realize that I distrust everything. :,

I wonder, though, if it was hubris for us to assume we'd ever have all the answers, though. We can learn, and refine what we've learned, and apply it as best we can to the evidence of our senses... but just the process of doing that should have illuminated that even when we thought we "got it", we actually only had a piece of it, and the next piece made the first piece invalid, or incomplete, etc.

But humans want answers, and science says 'we can give you those!'

I think maybe science should say less 'we can give you answers' and more 'we can help you navigate the world a little more successfully.'

[rowyn]

One of the things this book does that bugs me is, on the one hand, mock the old practices of scientists (like doctors who didn't think hygiene was important) and then, on the other hand, also speak of modern research as if its conclusions are infallible. Even granting that we are probably less inaccurate now than a hundred years ago, I still suspect that there is plenty of stuff modern scientce is pretty wrong on. Saying it's irrational to be skeptical of scientific findings is pretty simplistic. :/

[narile.livejournal.com]

Yeap...I mean its not like Scientists are making mistakes about oh, eggs being unhealthy for you, Fat being utterly evil, and alcohol being only good for pickling people, nope nope...

case in point:
http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/05/gluten_sensitivity_may_not_exist.html
(Note, I admire the scientist in this article, he didn't like the methodology in his first landmark study because of too many variables, so he redid the study with more control, and may have discovered a major flaw in his first study...and he openly admits it rather than try to bury it.)

[rowyn]

Exactly! What's supposed to be healthy or unhealthy in a diet changes every decade. x_x

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Exactly. For instance, take the issue of global warming. If I am told, "All the gases we're pumping into the air are going to make the Earth warmer," I have no particular reason to doubt it. (I may not be totally convinced about any particular REMEDY, but that's another matter.)

However, if I am told "the science is settled," or "the debate is over," I reflexively feel doubtful. Is science really something that can be "settled?" Forever? And if the debate really were over, would you feel obliged to declare that it's over? Because that would imply that someone doesn't agree, in which case, no, I'm not so sure that the "debate" is really over.

I am not saying this because I am advocating "climate denial" or whatever it's called. I'm all for solar panels and hydrogen-fueled cars and wind turbines and whatever else is going to save the day and result in less smog. I prefer a world with trees and grass and animals and clean air. I confess that I'm also rather attached to electricity. I'm only observing that there seems to be a lot of political pressure involved on both sides of debates that involve science (and there are other factors, such as pressure to come up with something "groundbreaking" and newsworthy, in order to secure funding for one's research). If I have any strong position on something, I can't just drop it as soon as someone comes at me with some anecdote or selective statistics that, if true (and properly interpreted), "disprove" my beliefs.

There have been cases where I honestly DID NOT CARE all that much about a particular topic, but I had heard A somewhere, so I assumed A was (until proven otherwise) true. Then someone comes along, tells me A is wrong, and B is right, and this is why. Then I hear a compelling case for why that advocate for B was full of garbage, and A was right all along. Until, of course, I hear B's rebuttal. And then there's all the anecdotal stuff that I can't verify. Who's telling the truth? Who's lying? Who's selectively pulling statistics in a misleading way? Is it reasonable for me to spin about in my "position" every time I'm presented with a new argument? I haven't the time to be the expert on every point discussed, WHEN it's brought up, and in a sense, the advantage goes to the "attacker." At some point, I'm just going to have to say, "You make a very compelling point, but I'm going to have to get back to you on that."

I think it's unrealistic to assume that if someone has any strongly held beliefs, just showing him a few "facts" on paper will make him do an about-turn. If that were the case, how should this study continue? Should they show him a NEW set of facts in the next room and see if he obligingly swaps right back? I wonder how long they could keep that up before he just declares them a bunch of misanthropes playing pointless mind games on him? ;)

[rowyn]

I didn't even want to mention global warming/climate change/whatever they're calling it now because ... ugh. So politicized. And one of those issues where what I think is true is unlikely to influence my actions (I conserve energy because it's expensive anyway, for instance) so do I really need to invest the effort of digging through research papers on this? I just want to write my silly fantasy stories and play video games. :/

Terrycloth used to sign up to participate in psychology studies when he was in college, and noted that you never have any idea what they're really studying in these things because they always lie to you about it. As I'm reading this book, that point is hammered home again and again. All the study descriptions start out "so we told participants we were studying X in order to keep from contaminating our results as we studied Y." It's kind of disturbing.

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

But humans want answers, and science says 'we can give you those!'

Eh, that's how science is represented, but I don't think that's what science actually says. Science more says "the experimental evidence is consistent with theory X" but doesn't generally present things as "things are definitely X." (What it can do, somewhat effectively, is to say that things are almost definitely not Y, Z, or Q.)

I think what science generally does is best described as... iterating towards "answers": over time, theories are refined (or thrown out) as new evidence becomes available, or when the things predicted by those theories turn out not to show up experimentally. Each individual theory may not be correct, but generally they're more correct than what has come before. Asimov has a good essay on this.

Medical science, I'll admit, has a much harder time with experimental evidence because it's impossible to control for the millions of different variables that go into the creation of any given person. There are some things you can do to give better controls (this is why genetically identical lab rats are so useful), but... yeah, it's harder than some other areas of science. It still trends in the right direction, but has definitely had some big missteps (which people notice particularly much because, well, medical science is a lot more directly impacting on people than, say, radio astronomy...

[rowyn]

Medical science, I'll admit, has a much harder time with experimental evidence because it's impossible to control for the millions of different variables that go into the creation of any given person.

As opposed to simple, easily studied phenomena with few variables, like climate science? :D

But it's still easier to study and control for than fields like economics or, heaven forbid, political policy. :/

[telnar.livejournal.com]

Even in contexts where out and out lying is unlikely, there's also a huge problem with selective presentation of true information without important context. Unfortunately, I don't know a good solution to that one other than delving deeply into the literature, or identifying someone who doesn't like the study conclusions who has done that and seeing how credible his arguments are.

[rowyn]

And a lot of the time, it doesn't seem worth the trouble to figure out who's right. :/