I Don't Want to be Right

[kandrathe]

I've never been one to accept the "you are just an organism driven by your DNA/Id/instincts" at face value. It seems to be at least broadly over generalized. I do subscribe to the notion that subconsciously people rise or fall to the societal expectations of them. Hence, the subconscious motivation to strive, or to sandbag.

This is why, as a parent, I'm keen to protect my children from negative messaging (e.g. "you're an idiot", "you're stupid", "you can't do xyz", "you're not good at xyz", even from themselves or their peers/siblings. And, I work to counteract it with examples where they are doing well. To do this, I need to be involved with them daily in helping with homework, and family time. I give them encouragement, and unconditional love.

As the boss, I tend to keep high expectations of people, and help/enable them to achieve more than they believed possible of themselves. To show I care about their work, I keep involved in everything that they are doing. They know then that they are accountable. I'm probably the toughest boss that they will ever have, because I'm involved in their projects. I'm also their strongest advocate, and through the tough work I promote them, even it if means going elsewhere.

Now I want to pick apart the argument specifically. Let's begin with the source; When Corrections Fail: The persistence of political misperceptions by Brenden Nyhan and Jason Reifler.

They use Iraq WMD's as an example of a misperception, as an example of how the political right cannot accept the "truth" that Iraq didn't have them. I would say this type of "knowledge" is representative of gray areas involving secrets and possibly unknowable truths. There is plenty of factual evidence that Iraq used chemical weapons against the Kurds, and Iran. There is a similar refusal by the political left here to allow for the possibility of plausible alternative scenarios forwarded by people who would be in a position to know (Shaw and Clapper). But, we do know Duefler didn't find them and the ISG determined they could find any evidence they moved. Now with the Russian's in charge of destroying Syria's stockpiles we may never have the evidence of any materials transfered from Iraq by Spetsnaz. For me, a skeptic, I believe the correct answer is "Iraq probably didn't have usable WMD's, but due to interference by Saddam and Russia we'll never be sure." The important political question is not if Iraq had chemical weapons, or the materials to produce them; The important question is whether this was justification for the war. For me, this was never a credible threat that justified the war.

Then there are the misperceptions where I believe the source of mistrust is misplaced, like the link between MMR vaccine and autism. I don't think peoples misperception is necessarily the vaccine itself, but the misinformation linked to thiomersal and the common sense knowledge that Mercury = badness. Couple this with the publics distrust of big pharma, and industrialized medicine, and you have a population with big doubts and not trusting what "the authorities" are saying. This is the same type of problem encountered by nuclear power, in that the general public perception of nuclear anything is dangerous regardless of the science or facts relating to the safe operation of most power plants. Yes, there are some catastrophic failures due to human negligence and lack of precaution. In the end, this vaccine (and also the raw milk issue) are reinforced by slim anecdotal evidence, where their misperception is reinforced. To counter act this misperception we shouldn't attempt to prove the vaccine is safe, but rather appeal to the fear of contracting the disease (or being poisoned by unpasteurized milk). This was the campaign that successfully moved us as a society to become vaccinated (and drink pasteurized milk).

The same argument can be made for their analysis of climate change skeptics. In that "debate", I would say it was the inaccuracy(politicizing) of the messaging, coupled with the profit motives of the messengers. It is undeniable that our burning of fossil fuels contributes to an increase in atmospheric carbon, which has an impact of climate and ocean acidification. For me, the inaccuracy on both sides relate to the scale of anthropogenic contribution. I think we'd (ecologists) get further by emphasizing the down sides of coal not related to carbon dioxide. I'm uncomfortable (and have been since the 80's) with allowing lead, mercury, arsenic, and other toxins to rain downwind of coal fired power plants. On the other side of the equation, we are crippling natures ability to sequester carbon through pollution and deforestation. I'm also a realist, where the answer is clearly not "let's make energy really, really expensive" but rather, let's invest in research, and development of cleaner cheaper alternatives to our current energy production. Hence my displeasure with Obama's policies which have resulted in bringing gasoline prices higher (double what it had been), and unwillingness to pledge to support a viable electric vehicle infrastructure, with vehicles affordable to the average middle class home. In the 2008 campaign he hinted at an Apollo, or Manhattan project to deal with energy. I don't see it.

Generally then, in the analysis of the paper done by Nyhan and Riefler, I believe they've focused strongly on political issues that are thorny and complicated which defy an absolute "right" or "wrong" answer. Where they focus on prejudice, why yes, of course our minds are hard to change based upon reading "facts". I've found that it often takes experiences to counteract learned prejudice, even when that learned prejudice is not based experientially.

Human nature is not merely nature, but also nurture. Which is why we aspire to make ideal families, and assume properly that it is the norm;


... but also fail to know what to do when they end up more anti-social like; The Barkers


At least we can rely on public education to educate the ignorant masses... yeah, right. :-) So, then, yes, as things stand now, the Star Trek ideal is pretty far off.

P.S. An after thought. I believe also that due to our easy access to information we are bombarded by both the correct and incorrect at unprecedented levels. The media used to have limited time (60 minute nightly news) to process, package and deliver the known facts. Now, we hardly get the facts, but more punditry discussing and spinning the known facts, and speculating on the implications. Our sources for news have become more focused on entertainment, and reinforcing (political) biases. Since this research is focused on the political, so will I. You know where my politics lie, but I cannot stand to watch ANY of the typical US network news sources since they are so blatantly, unabashedly partisan and inherently deceptive bordering on propaganda. I try to be informed, but to do so requires research into the depth of topics, and scraping away at sources and attempting to pierce the veil of biases. The point being here is that the typical consumer of "political news" is likely to get a pre-packaged limited selection of spin bordering on propaganda, depending on their source. The Internet is a great place to find information, unfortunately you have to sift out the Natural News, from the CDC.gov. As a culture, we must do a better job teaching people (and our children) the difference between good and bad source information -- as well as opinions derived from factual evidence and grounded research, as opposed to the other kind.

TL;DR -- Naw, I don't think this is decidedly so, but it's the rare rat that bothers to traverse the maze.