Great article. Couple of thoughts on this: "Individuals who view reality as a political construct are significantly more likely to embrace falsehoods, whereas those who believe that their conclusions must hew to available evidence tend to hold more accurate beliefs."
I think that there is a genuine ambiguity about causation in political discussions, and we generally need to use "causal models" as an intermediary between evidence and belief. The causal models used though - within indirect relationships between observations and outcomes in the presence of many other seen and unseen dynamics - are often the contested bit, and nearly always impossible to "prove". (Many authors have addressed complexity and the limits of understanding and prediction, such as Paul Oremord, in his book "Why Most Things Fail")
If I hold to a conspiracy theory that "our government are trying to kill the old people", then how strong a case is there if the government, say, remove winter fuel payments, tax pensions, reduce healthcare and social care, and introduce a euthanasia bill: I could point to studies to say that in 70%-90% of the times that these policies were implemented, they led to higher death rates amongst the old at a disproportionate rate compared to the rest of the population.
The government could claim, in response, it is trying to reduce public costs, stimulate enterprise and increase tax revenues, which will make everyone live longer - and label their critics as conspiracy theorists. They point to studies that GDP/capital (say) correlated with age, and they are trying to lift GDP/capita.
I am pretty sure that my wife and dog engage in illicit biscuit eating sessions. They leave the kitchen and the number of biscuits are less than when they entered. However, in more complex situations than this, then "evidence" is not so much an object (weapon/photo/document/event), but of a more ethereal causality i.e. the forces between objects, usually in the presence of other concurrent forces. It can make it tricky NOT to be a conspiracy theorist. We sometimes have to proceed with the "best imperfect evidence", hold our views lightly, and wait until we are proven wrong. Otherwise, we can come to believe nothing at all when things get complicated.
This is actually the way that the best forecasters* on the planet proceed. They still get it wrong. They piece together disparate evidence, assign probabilities, and update judgements.
(* To be a strong forecaster, you need to understand why things happen i.e. minimise bias in interpreting events and relationships).
It does highlight the Bayesian approach nicely, tony: updating probabilities (that your narrative is correct) based on new data, and updating narratives as a result.
Forever.
Or at least until one is satisfied that the evidence & remaining uncertainties point in one direction or another (and then being willing to reopen the closed case if extraordinary data arises).
Sounds like you’ve got pretty solid evidence from which to infer a likely set of possible outcomes.
(i.e., It is still *possible* that Helen comes over each night & strews crumbs about, while Cookie Gnomes abscond with the goods in support of some amorphous business plan. But not very *likely* — with or without gnomes 🤷♂️)
This step is where too many people fail: “Better … is exercising an evidence-based epistemology and sound reasoning.” They instead employ shortcuts like the Bible or church says (as they interpret what they were told the Bible says), or as my loyal friend and ally says, or as my favorite partisan advocacy group says, or as this other partisan advocacy groups says that we are allying ourselves with because we benefit from a - they support our cause and we support their cause - reciprocal exchange, or as my understanding of favoring my self-interest wants to be the case says, or as by saying over and over again we alter reality to match what we say, or…
I fear that the energy savings that relate to shortcut & biased-ridden thinking are too substantial to expect a plurality of humanity to be positioned to take the time to live the life scientific: biological and socioeconomic factors will limit the ability & extent to which any individual is able to apply the scientific method throughout their lives personal, professional, spiritual, and otherwise.
In such scarcity-driven circumstances, behaviour tends toward the less energy intensive, and “narrative maintenance”costs can broadly be separated into 4 classes:
Nihilistic
Revelatory
Scientific
Conspiratorial
Nihilism requires no narrative maintenance, and involves the assimilation of zero additional information.
Revelation requires minimal narrative effort, and involves accepting one source of information (as “gospel” if I may 😉) & squaring new info with that source.
Conspiracy requires minimal narrative as well, as new information generates new “epicycles” that can be interpreted in any way one likes. Fourier transformation means that even if rigour is applied, one can always find a solution that fits — with enough epicycles.
All 3 of these explain everything, and nothing, with relatively low narrative cost.
But science & the scientific method require the balancing of parsimony with utility, intuition with evidence, learning from past errors, openness to future error, and far more. The facts actually matter, and that means that it’s “expensive”, in a manner analogous to the reality that quality, transparent, democratic government is more costly than a dictator — if $$ are all one cares about 🤮
Game theory predicts that as long as there is a sufficient supply of individuals able & predisposed to take on this additional mental burden, and sufficient benefit to (sometimes at least) the group following their counsel/methods, the level of such ability & predisposition will reach an equilibrium — one that right now doesn’t inspire much confidence in this liberal physicalist.
And yet, my absence of free will means I believe it can & will improve as I & likeminded others engage the world methodically 🙀
Great article. Couple of thoughts on this: "Individuals who view reality as a political construct are significantly more likely to embrace falsehoods, whereas those who believe that their conclusions must hew to available evidence tend to hold more accurate beliefs."
I think that there is a genuine ambiguity about causation in political discussions, and we generally need to use "causal models" as an intermediary between evidence and belief. The causal models used though - within indirect relationships between observations and outcomes in the presence of many other seen and unseen dynamics - are often the contested bit, and nearly always impossible to "prove". (Many authors have addressed complexity and the limits of understanding and prediction, such as Paul Oremord, in his book "Why Most Things Fail")
If I hold to a conspiracy theory that "our government are trying to kill the old people", then how strong a case is there if the government, say, remove winter fuel payments, tax pensions, reduce healthcare and social care, and introduce a euthanasia bill: I could point to studies to say that in 70%-90% of the times that these policies were implemented, they led to higher death rates amongst the old at a disproportionate rate compared to the rest of the population.
The government could claim, in response, it is trying to reduce public costs, stimulate enterprise and increase tax revenues, which will make everyone live longer - and label their critics as conspiracy theorists. They point to studies that GDP/capital (say) correlated with age, and they are trying to lift GDP/capita.
I am pretty sure that my wife and dog engage in illicit biscuit eating sessions. They leave the kitchen and the number of biscuits are less than when they entered. However, in more complex situations than this, then "evidence" is not so much an object (weapon/photo/document/event), but of a more ethereal causality i.e. the forces between objects, usually in the presence of other concurrent forces. It can make it tricky NOT to be a conspiracy theorist. We sometimes have to proceed with the "best imperfect evidence", hold our views lightly, and wait until we are proven wrong. Otherwise, we can come to believe nothing at all when things get complicated.
This is actually the way that the best forecasters* on the planet proceed. They still get it wrong. They piece together disparate evidence, assign probabilities, and update judgements.
(* To be a strong forecaster, you need to understand why things happen i.e. minimise bias in interpreting events and relationships).
Yes, I don’t think that could be considered a conspiracy theory as there is actually evidence of them doing what you say they are.
Probably a bad example - too crude. There were probably better, more subtle examples. Thanks for the response.
It does highlight the Bayesian approach nicely, tony: updating probabilities (that your narrative is correct) based on new data, and updating narratives as a result.
Forever.
Or at least until one is satisfied that the evidence & remaining uncertainties point in one direction or another (and then being willing to reopen the closed case if extraordinary data arises).
Sounds like you’ve got pretty solid evidence from which to infer a likely set of possible outcomes.
(i.e., It is still *possible* that Helen comes over each night & strews crumbs about, while Cookie Gnomes abscond with the goods in support of some amorphous business plan. But not very *likely* — with or without gnomes 🤷♂️)
This step is where too many people fail: “Better … is exercising an evidence-based epistemology and sound reasoning.” They instead employ shortcuts like the Bible or church says (as they interpret what they were told the Bible says), or as my loyal friend and ally says, or as my favorite partisan advocacy group says, or as this other partisan advocacy groups says that we are allying ourselves with because we benefit from a - they support our cause and we support their cause - reciprocal exchange, or as my understanding of favoring my self-interest wants to be the case says, or as by saying over and over again we alter reality to match what we say, or…
Conspiracies do indeed happen. That's why we all should make sure we know facts and how to establish them.
But Helen, as much as I enjoyed all of your nuanced discussion, your brain did overflow this time around. Bring a mop next time.
(I feel I can say that because I have finally learned to bring a mop whenever I sit down at the keyboard.)
I fear that the energy savings that relate to shortcut & biased-ridden thinking are too substantial to expect a plurality of humanity to be positioned to take the time to live the life scientific: biological and socioeconomic factors will limit the ability & extent to which any individual is able to apply the scientific method throughout their lives personal, professional, spiritual, and otherwise.
In such scarcity-driven circumstances, behaviour tends toward the less energy intensive, and “narrative maintenance”costs can broadly be separated into 4 classes:
Nihilistic
Revelatory
Scientific
Conspiratorial
Nihilism requires no narrative maintenance, and involves the assimilation of zero additional information.
Revelation requires minimal narrative effort, and involves accepting one source of information (as “gospel” if I may 😉) & squaring new info with that source.
Conspiracy requires minimal narrative as well, as new information generates new “epicycles” that can be interpreted in any way one likes. Fourier transformation means that even if rigour is applied, one can always find a solution that fits — with enough epicycles.
All 3 of these explain everything, and nothing, with relatively low narrative cost.
But science & the scientific method require the balancing of parsimony with utility, intuition with evidence, learning from past errors, openness to future error, and far more. The facts actually matter, and that means that it’s “expensive”, in a manner analogous to the reality that quality, transparent, democratic government is more costly than a dictator — if $$ are all one cares about 🤮
Game theory predicts that as long as there is a sufficient supply of individuals able & predisposed to take on this additional mental burden, and sufficient benefit to (sometimes at least) the group following their counsel/methods, the level of such ability & predisposition will reach an equilibrium — one that right now doesn’t inspire much confidence in this liberal physicalist.
And yet, my absence of free will means I believe it can & will improve as I & likeminded others engage the world methodically 🙀