Studies Say Ideology Trumps Facts

Anti-Globalism writes "We like to think that people will be well informed before making important decisions, such as who to vote for, but the truth is that's not always the case. Being uninformed is one thing, but having a population that's actively misinformed presents problems when it comes to participating in the national debate, or the democratic process. If the findings of some political scientists are right, attempting to correct misinformation might do nothing more than reinforce the false belief."

Comments

Belief

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm entirely not surprised.

In my opinion, broadly speaking, there are two kinds of people in the world; those who prefer an internal moral compass and those who prefer an external moral compass. The former tend to analyse things for themselves, look at all the facts and come up with a decision- is this "right/true/a good idea/etc". The latter tend to look to some higher authority- religion, the government, parents, spouse, boss, etc to make the majority of these decisions for them.

This doesn't mean that the former is automatically better than the latter- the latter have a vast pool of opinions to draw upon, while the former only have themselves and can be often actively disregard the opinions of others in the name of "doing what *they* want". Individualism for the sake of individualism, you might say.

Most people, I think, fall somewhere in the middle and lean one way or the other. I tend to lean towards the former, but I recognise the traps that can befall these kind of people and actively seek to avoid them.

Re:Democracy - "the least worst form of government

[Anonymous Coward]

Humanity as a whole has definitely peaked. We continue to enhance out technology, but the lump of meat at the centre of it has a fundamental flaw, built in by the evolutionary process. Our imaginations that make all the technology possible is a double edged sword that also results in all the useless and often destructive ideology.

If humanity has something approaching a "purpose", it is to create a successor intelligence (machine, biological or hybrid) and at that moment we will have become the gods we conjure in our imaginations, and also obsolete.

Not even conspiracy

[Moraelin]

Actually, my best bet would be on "cognitive dissonance" rather than "conspiracy theory."

The best way to illustrate cognitive dissonance is via the classic experiment: you assign someone (e.g., a student) a Homer Simpson-esque job that's boring him to tears. Then you one day say he can stop doing it, you have something better to do with him. But you ask him if he can find a replacement for that previous crap job. You even offer a dollar if he does. So he'll go try to convince someone else that it's a great job to take. The fun thing is, after a while he'll have convinced himself too that it's a great job.

Apparently, having to reconcile between "I'm a nice and honest guy" and "I just lied to a bunch of people for a lousy dollar", he'll alter the latter to, basically, "yeah, well, it wasn't really a lie." Just to keep his mental model consistent.

It seems to be a function of at least the mammalian brain. When you have two contradictory ideas in your model, one has to give. With humans, though, if one idea is too important to let go, something else has to give.

Even more fun is that the strength of the effect is inversely proportional to how sustainable or justifiable that action is. If you offer him a lot more money, he has the escape of, basically, "yeah, well, I needed the money. So I have my price too. Bite me." If it's a precondition to getting out of that crap job, same thing, he has an excuse. But when there's no excuse he can wrap his mind around, he'll alter the truth so he doesn't need an excuse.

A similar fun effect is with kids. Apparently when they really want something or to do something, as silly deterrent like "mommy will pout" is often actually more effective than a harsh punishment, if applied consistently. When there is no real justification for "why didn't I do that, if I wanted to anyway?" something else has to give, and it becomes, "I didn't really want that in the first place." Fun stuff.

I find that the same applies to politics, religion, fanboys, or, for that matter, everything else. The least justifiable a position is, the more people will warp reality to keep it. And the more rabidly they'll defend that redefinition of reality, lest their whole mental model comes crashing down around their ears.

And, yes, applying more force just creates more resistance.

And for a last bit of fun, there's no defender more stalwart of a piece of bullshit, than someone whose model already broke down once and was patched to that bullshit. If they're going to have to admit "I was wrong and doing wrong" anyway, they'll run with that to the hilt, and make an even more warped model in the other direction. So funnily enough, there is no more rabid, say, XBox fanboy, than one who was a PS2 fanboy and felt betrayed by Sony and had to let their whole "Sony for ever!!!" model crash. And viceversa. There is no bible-thumper for puritan morals more rabid than someone who was a prostitute until last week. And viceversa: nobody does a good christian-baiting trolling like someone who still went to church last month. There is no Republican more rabid about every single aspect of that ideology, than someone who was a Democrat until they felt somehow betrayed. And viceversa.

But now they won't just change about the aspect where they thought they were cheated, they'll go for the whole list, from military spending to abortion stance to gay marriage to everything else. Now Party X is right in everything, and Party Y is wrong about everything, because I don't like Party Y any more. And I must enlighten the masses about how wrong and evil Party Y is!

And the least justifiable that position is (e.g., don't be silly, Sony didn't "betray" anyone and didn't owe you anything in the first place), the more immovable it will be. As I was saying, fun stuff.

Re:Not even conspiracy

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

The problem is that this doesn't work. It's unfortunate, but it doesn't. The real world demands an answer and demands it now. The formation of ideology begins with learning to physically control the body a mind finds itself in. That means that at every point in time any human mind (including that of the most tolerant, most perfect human ever alive) any conclusion is reached in 0.05 seconds or less. That means yours too.

What anyone's mind really is, in essence is a control loop. Based on what it's seen in the past <x>, it will construct an output <y>, for the present, to send to the muscles.

It does NOT matter :
-> whether <y> is correct. For starters it is nearly always not clear what correct means. Do you open the door with your left hand or right hand ? Who cares ? Ideology only needs to be correct "enough" to prevent catastrophic mistakes. Therefore for example religions that are trivially wrong can be useful, and very correct scientificically based ideologies can be very bad (because they for example lead to indecision in the face of a threat)
-> whether <y> is based on some theory. A child is not capable of reasoning it's way out of a problem using theoretical knowledge for the simple reason that it doesn't have any theoretical knowledge. At first it learns to imitate, then it imitates.
-> <y> is some combination of imitation behavior (this does NOT mean that your behavior is in any serious way limited by what you've seen, but it obviously does mean that violent video games do indeed cause violent responses in players)
-> how complex the model forming <y> is. However one thing's for sure : it has to be able to be calculated in the real world in (VERY) finite time. Therefore it barely contains any loops. It's also necessarily simpler than the truth. That means the model used is TOO simple, and will always remain so.
-> we always use wrong shortcuts. The real world that affects us consists of 6 billion humans, a large planet. A huge nuclear reactor. Trillions upon trillions of animals, bugs, microbes and plants. Obviously whatever it is our mind does, it does NOT simulate all other minds and plants to find the optimal solution. For obvious reasons this is 100% true whether or not the individual in question knows how (or thinks he knows how). If we take into account 1 or 2 "entities" (outside of ourselves) planning our next move, that's atypically high.

So if you're looking for the response "why don't people think before they do ?". The response is simple : our world is not very forgiving of that behavior in many, many cases. Because it's stupid, in that even a little too much of it will get you killed for utter stupidity (e.g. you'd have problems controlling your steps and would fall down any stair you'd ever try to climb, fall over every rock) Therefore we've evolved not to do that. Some greeks (or whoever before them) stumbled on a few bits of logic, and since then people have been imitating them (it does not matter who was earlier it if they haven't got a continuous link to us). But the current practice of logic, is, in our minds, imitation behavior. Note that this is not an argument deciding whether logic is correct or false, merely that "I think it's right" is not sufficient, and perhaps not even a good sign.

Certainly stuff like the concepts of "good" and "evil" are based upon imitation.

Re:Not even conspiracy

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Unfortunately it's been proven that dogmatism is the ONLY non-self-delusional behavior.

You see there is no rational basis for the universe. That means that there will always be axioms, which are non-negotiable, final and eternal truths that we have no explanation for at all. ("we cannot pull ourselves out of the mud")

The sad thing is that therefore anyone who claims to think "rational" is wrong. If he were truly rational he wouldn't be able to reach any conclusion at all, for he'd run stuck on the axioms he uses, and from the question "why does axiom <x> hold ?" there is no rational way out. And since this persion reaches conclusions in a rational way, he'd run stuck on that problem no matter what problem he was trying to resolve.

That's what logic has discovered in the past century : any "rational" theory without an infinite number of eternal, unexplained truths is either incomplete (does not explain a (generally very very large) part of the universe) or it's wrong (logically inconsistent).

One would hope that science is in the former category, and will remain there to be merely incomplete. But one visit to any library will tell you that it's really partially inconsistent, and described to be seriously more "complete" than it really is. (AGW for example, we make models and then "oops" the sun's corona, out of the blue, cools 20%. Trust me, it's going to be a f*cking cold winter).

Any "true" theory therefore will be dogmatic. The problem is that it's entirely unclear WHICH dogmatism is "the one" (probably an entirely new one). One would hope people would read history and use that to decide which ideologies held out longest and most stably. That sort of thing is very thorougly frowned upon on slashdot however, probably because the answer would certainly not be "democracy", but probably a kingdom with a state religion.

"Lenses"

[ChePibe]

I was a poli sci major, now a law student (yeah, I know, what the hell am I doing on Slashdot...). I think the most useful discussion I ever heard in class was one on the general idea of "lenses" we see the world through.

The professor who taught the course had been in the Intelligence Community for some time, and this is an issue that analysts and other intelligence officers encountered constantly and is, in fact, encountered in essentially every career path. Analysts, who may not have visited the country they work on in years, will see it very differently than the man on the ground. The man on the ground, however, who is constantly tied up with a million small details, will likely see things differently and fail to see the big picture.

In my own life, I can think of a few instances where this has been particularly true. I had the "pleasure" of getting caught in the middle of a slum during the December 2001 riots in Argentina. Not a pleasant experience, needless to say. So now, every time I go back to Latin America, I'm paranoid. Once you've seen people getting stabbed and robbed all around you, you get that way. It's my "lens" - I always see things as less stable than they truly are, and always feel that I need to be ready to either batten down the hatches or bolt at any moment.

A more useful story would come from a recent work-related incident. A legal issue came up when I was an intern at a law office (yes, imagine that). I was in a conference with the other attorneys - all distinguished professionals with lengthy records - discussing the matter, and all of the attorneys handled it exactly like they would a case from a textbook - they played their "role". They took the facts they were given, assumed they were real, and attempted to find a legal answer to the situation. That's what lawyers do. After listening to discussion on this for several minutes, I piped up and questioned the very basis of the facts (the situation seemed a bit far-fetched to me - one not yet entirely corrupted by the practice of law - and I simply applied Occam's razor). I received strange stares for a moment, and then the attorney in charge of the matter said, "wow, I'd never considered that before. Let's look into it." Sure enough, I was right, and we saved a lot of money, headache, and effort on research and other costs.

People simply see things differently and will process information differently. Environment, experience, language, education, spirituality, family background, geographical origin, economic situation, genetics (to an extent), etc. all shape how we see the world - and how we even interpret - or even recognize - fact. It's only human. The best we can hope to do is to acknowledge it and to seek out those who view things differently in the hopes of honing our own vision and seeing things we hadn't seen before.

The news media.....

[3seas]

... is the voice that can be used to correct falsehoods.

It is also the voice used to create falsehoods.

FIRST branch of government

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The modern media is not the fourth branch, or estate, of government. It is the First Estate. Let me explain.

The estates have classically been, in order:
1) The Church
2) The Aristocracy
3) Everybody Else

Traditionally added to this list has been

4) The Media ("Independent of church and state")

This was the rule up to one should think about 50 years ago in most countries. It's still the case today in many, especially latin american, countries. However, one should realise that the estates we not so much defined by WHO they were so much as WHAT they did. For instance, one can easily replace "aristocracy" with "very rich people", and the second estate model still fits modern society.

However, how does one replace "church" in modern society? Even in america, religious leaders wield only a small fraction of the power they once did. Do we then conclude that the model of the three estates is therefore outdated and does not apply? I would argue that this is not the case, and that the three estates model is in fact a valid model for how almost all societies operate on a basic level.

What did the first estate do? The church was closer to the people that the aristocracy. It wielded great influence over them through its sermons, traditions and omni-presence in society at large. It mostly sided with the aristocracy, to maintain the status quo. Though it would disagree with their policies when it suited its own purposes. The general idea was that the aristocrats ruled, while the church helped keep the people in line. In turn, the aristocrats would confer legal status, benefits and privileges to the church. It was a symbiotic relationship designed to keep power out of the hands of the masses.

Who replaces the church of the Ancien Régime in our 21st century society? No-one? Look beyond outward apearance and to the actual substance of the matter. Who is close to those in power and spreads their message to the masses? Who is close enough to the average citizen to influence their opinion? Who generally agrees with the government, but can disagree when it suits their purposes. Who benefits from their patronage?

The modern media, or at least the majority of it, constitutes the first estate in our modern society. I'd like to stress that I do not believe this to be the result of a conspiracy or plot. Rather, I would hold that the three estates model is a natural state towards which human societies will gravitate, without anyone ever consciously planning or realizing it.

The demise of church power in western society has left a vacuum. The Media has filled that vacuum. When people talk about the Daily Show being the only source of "real news", they are in effect pointing out the inherant difference between the "New Media" of the First estate (Bill O'Reilly), and the "Old Media" of the Fourth estate (Jon Stewart). These two model of media have always existed together, but in recent times, the First estate media has become the dominant type.

In order for idealogical to work, it needs propaganda. It needs a first estate. In order to resist ideology, we need the truth. We need a fourth estate. Right now, we have too much of the former and dangerously little of the latter.

Re:So she disliked a book and never banned it

[snl2587]

You handily glossed over the fact she only thought the book did not belong, and never did anything about it.

And you handily glossed over the fact that the GP used a poor quote to support his argument, and you're both missing something important. From the same article (emphasis mine):

The new mayor also tended carefully to her evangelical base. She appointed a pastor to the town planning board. And she began to eye the library. For years, social conservatives had pressed the library director to remove books they considered immoral.

"People would bring books back censored," recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms. Palin's predecessor. "Pages would get marked up or torn out."

Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.

Note: One of these contemporary reports from a different article/reporter claim that it was a little more than a simple request. Now back to the main point:

This presents one heck of a conflict: believe the witness accounts of her constituents garnered from the investigative reporting of news organizations that are trying desperately to dig up dirt on all fronts (yes, all. Just because someone has more dirt than another does not mean that the reporting is unfair.) or the words of the campaign that's trying desperately to get elected. Is there a truth to this? Of course, but it means one side is deliberately lying, spinning the truth, or honestly believes one way or the other despite being wrong. It really comes down to who you believe, if either.

Fox News

[Macka]

I'm from the UK and recently took a holiday in San Diego to visit some relatives. Great place, but unfortunately they had a limited Sat TV package that only gave a choice of a few news channels, and Fox News was the one that got turned on most.

Now I've never seen Fox News before, and coming from a country there the TV news has a mandate to be unbiased, Fox News was quite a shock to the system. I've never seen anything like it. It's completely one sided (towards Republicans) crammed with emotional rhetoric deliberately aimed at misinforming the viewer. It so over exaggerates the current level of the "terrorist threat" to America, that an outsider viewing this crap would think you're on the cusp of being invaded.

Watching it reminded me of the kind of news propaganda that the Nazi's used in WW2 to convince their population that their cause was just and righteous, and demoralize their enemies.

I know that sounds a bit strong, but I was just so shocked at the level of dishonest manipulation Fox News are involved in. And horrified that there are people in the USA who actually watch this trash and BELIEVE that it's real news!

Re:Fox News

[Der Einzige]

By your argument, ANY attempt to correct misinformation is in itself an emotional clinging to a world view. Taking your argument to its logical conclusion, we'd have to say that every statement -- including yours above -- is simply an expression of bias and emotion. Nothing we say has anything to do with reality -- in fact, the words "reality" or "fact" are emotionally loaded words that try to put a bias on particular world views. That way lies madness.

It was metaphorically speaking

[Moraelin]

Yes, that was metaphorically speaking, and using the term "wiring" rather inexact.

The actual "wiring", as you noted, is largely the data. That's how we learn.

The metaphorical "wiring" I'm talking about is actually in the DNA and proteins encoded by it. It's how the neurons themselves are built to work. They don't rewire the network randomly, they have a bit of code in the DNA that says how they should work. The BIOS and bootstrap code of that neural network, so to speak. That's really what I'm talking about when I say "wired".

I hope it didn't cause too much confusion to anyone.

As for how would you check for consistency, I dunno, by running a proof through it and seeing if you get two contradicting results? There's even a conjecture that that's what dreams are: the night job that runs simulations through that data.

But in truth I doubt that there's anyone who can tell you exactly how the brain works, and which pathway belongs to the consistency checking job. If we knew that, we'd already have a working AI.

We can however look at it from the outside, like at a black box, and notice some things it does. And there is strong evidence that it does that kind of a model consistency check and cleanup. Even if we don't know exactly how it works, we can see what goes in and what comes out, and it looks that way.

Same as I can look at a plane and say it tries to keep its altitude constant, even if I have no fucking clue which control surfaces are used for that, and even less clue what the code running on its computers is.