You didn't answer the question, though. You didn't even postulate a testable hypothesis. "Water freezes" is a fundamental experiment to run, yes. "Prison sentences" is complex, certainly, but it doesn't touch on ideology. Jonah Lehrer devotes several chapters to this in How We Decide (and footnotes it, so the studies are legit, unlike that nasty Bob Dylan business). Simply put, we have evolved to focus on and pay attention to information that affirms our preconceptions, while we are evolved to tune out and ignore information that contradicts our preconceptions. We do not start as blank slates, we start as piles of hunches that, like a ball in a pachinko game, bounces off of facts on our way to the bottom… all the while avoiding things we know are going to hurt our brains. Play Rush Limbaugh to conservatives and give them a dial that adjusts the noise, they'll adjust it down. Play Rush Limbaugh to liberals and give them the same dial, they'll adjust it up. So the better example is, say, global warming. Or its liberal doppelgänger, vaccine skepticism. Show two people with two ideologies one study and both will find things that reassure them in their biases. It's only until there is a preponderance of unavoidable, painful evidence that you will shock people out of cognitive dissonance and into rationalization. Even now, with the autism link widely discredited, vaccine denialists are focusing on other vaccines because "there haven't been enough tests yet." And even now, with the overwhelming majority of information supporting anthropocentric global warming, the skeptics are picking holes in the model about how fast it's happening as evidence that "nobody knows anything." Sam Harris does a pretty good job of wrapping your head around it with "The Fireplace Delusion."
Given my position, it would be contradictory to attempt a testable hypothesis! :) Actually, unless I’ve missed something, what I have said is generally compatible with the positions you’ve offered. I will have to look at the Harris reference and get back with you. Short on time.
Okay, that might be me not really getting your point. It seems like your fundamental argument is this: I disagree with this statement. The argument I'm making is this: Elaborating on your argument, you dive into complexity and model-making, even throwing Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in there. Here's a good quote: My argument is that you are incorrect: It is not a matter of complexity that causes people to disagree. It is a matter of prejudice, and a matter of selection bias. As simply put as possible, the suitability of Sarah Palin for higher office is a pretty simple discussion. She was mayor of a tiny town in Alaska, she spent two years on Murkowski's coat tails, and she was inches away from a massive scandal when she got scooped up to tart up McCain's ticket. But if you're predisposed to see the "presidential" qualities of Sarah Palin, you're going to ignore and downplay all that in favor of intangibles like "charm" and "earthiness" because you've already decided she'd be a good vice president. Objectively it's not even a contest - consider the laughingstock that Dan Quayle was. Picking a fight with Murphy Brown! The horror! But look at Quayle's record before the VP spot. Do you think Sarah Palin would have survived if Republican selection bias didn't require Republicans to find her worthy? The complexity of the problem is inconsequential. We're in a "shoot first, ask questions later" mindset about pretty much everything, and any argument we engage in, we've picked sides before we've opened our mouths. Your argument is this: Except no. Take James Carville and Mary Matalin. She ran George Bush's campaign in 1992, worked for Reagan, etc. He ran Clinton's campaign in 1992, worked for Howard Dean, etc. They've been married since 1993 and are uncontested experts in politics. Yet they disagree completely as far as political ideology. By your argument, their far-more-perfect knowledge than the average schmo should lend itself towards a far-more-perfect agreement over the major points but it hasn't. In this case, and in all cases, understanding the situation better doesn't get you closer to the "truth" in complex problems, it makes your arguments more compelling and gives you more certainty over your correctness.Fundamentally, people disagree because most of their beliefs are supported by evidence that is at best fragmentary and at worst imaginary.
Simply put, we have evolved to focus on and pay attention to information that affirms our preconceptions, while we are evolved to tune out and ignore information that contradicts our preconceptions.
The difference between the freezing water proposition and the theft proposition is not one of kind, but one of complexity. Both really are just physics problems – dependent on the behavior of physical things that are subject of physical constraints.
We know little about politics, economics, sociology, etc – in the same sense that we know the rudiments of the physical sciences… Every historical event, in time, ceases to be a collision of physical causes and becomes an author’s narrative.
I was sloppy at noon because I was in a hurry. I am now going to plead being sloppy because I am tired. I understand your point about bias. I am going to insist that I did not ignore this: "Of course, some beliefs aren’t justified with any obvious logic – not even merely inductive logic. If we believe that the theft proposition is true because it plainly makes intuitive sense, we are justifying the belief with a narrative. A narrative is essentially a coherent framework constructed from one’s own prior assumptions and imagination. It depends on the assumption that ideas that are easy to believe are probably true. We can, of course, believe all sorts of silly and erroneous things and still be coherent, because coherence (in the non-philosophical world) only demands we avoid intolerably obvious affronts to logic. Narrative arguments need little evidence; they only need an air of plausibility.3 When faced with problems that are beyond our full comprehension, we actually have no choice but to content ourselves with either oversimplifications or narrative conjectures. Since both of these alternatives are generally presented in the form of truths (typically as declarative statements) they carry more persuasive weight than they can rationally bear.4" This is, I believe, the same thing you are talking about. When people don't know any better, either because the issue is too complex to the data is inaccessible to them, they fall back on what they already think they know. I stand by my basic complexity claim too -- because I think, nasty and philosophical as it is, it is a fact. (I have a longish, picky, tedious epistemology essay I'll be posting here eventually. I am deeply shocked and delighted that people will actually read it. That is genuinely wonderful...) I won't be baited into defending Palin. I would not want her to be President, though my opinion of her is higher now then it was in '08. Not high -- just higher. It really wasn't my intention to have a fight over politics at this point. Epistemology is enough for one day... A good line of argument, by the way. I just don't think our views are mutually exclusive.
There's a causality issue that you're skirting, however. You keep coming back to "things are just too complex so we oversimplify and construct a narrative." Simply put, you're at "IF complexity THEN oversimplification." The evidence doesn't bear that out. So what you think is a fact matters less than what you can demonstrate as a testable hypothesis. That's why I linked to the Jonah Lehrer book - these hypotheses have been tested, and they have come up with the explanation for "rational disagreement" that I've put forth. So as "nasty and philosophical" as your claim may be, it's a guess. On the other hand, here's the abstract for an actual experiment that disproves your hypothesis. It's described on pp. 206. In the end, you're still coming back to "we just can't figure out the truth" when the actual mechanism is "we actively ignore the truth when we don't like it." Do you see the difference?
Consider the smoking example in your linked abstract. The assumption of the experimenter is that test subjects should assume the tape-recorded messages are factual. Why? Presumably because the experimenter considers them factual. In practice, most information is probabilistic. “Smoking-cancer link” does not mean everyone who smokes a cigarette gets cancer – it only means that more people than average do, and that’s assuming one has a reason to trust the source. The smoker might believe: “My friend Louis smoked a pack a day from age sixteen and died in a car accident at the age of ninety-five. Maybe I’ll get lucky too.” And, indeed, the smoker might be correct. Yes, such a presumption might be based on a predisposition to smoke, but it is only possible to entertain such a presumption because the counter claims are probabilistic and issue from a source whose reliability is not known. It would be different if the messages guaranteed a negative outcome. Tell your test subjects that the surgeon general has order cyanide added to all cigarettes sold in the US from this day forward – and they will push the button that turns down the static immediately. I’m not saying your phenomena isn’t prevalent – but I am saying it exists against a general background of uncertainty. People sometimes deliberately avoid hearing about things they feel truly certain about – but that the exception not the rule.
No, no, no. You're trying to triangulate to a corner of the world where your fundamental assertions are still unchallenged, but you can't get there. Here's the problem: Not in evidence, not tested for, not relevant to the discussion. The assumptions of the subjects is not under investigation, nor does it have any bearing on the outcome. The only question is whether the subjects want to hear the information or not - its veracity does not enter into the discussion. The experiment was published in August 1967. Cigarette packs had only had warnings on them since 1966 - even then, they were pretty ambivalent ("Caution: Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health"). In 1965, 42% of adults smoked. It's entirely possible that the experiment was conducted before even that mealy-mouthed warning made it onto packs. So you can't just invalidate the experiment by presuming the experimenter presumes the subjects are taking the recordings as gospel truth. It isn't part of the experiment, there's no basis to make the assumption, and the facts on the ground indicate that it's a silly assumption to make in the first place. The only thing being tested is openness to information based on the content of that information.The assumption of the experimenter is that test subjects should assume the tape-recorded messages are factual.
There are really only a few ways intelligent disagreements can go.
One way is well illustrated by my discussion with waxoxygen (see above). After the resolution of a number of points of contention, we discover that we are in general agreement. Neither of us won the argument. The fact that waxoxygen agreed with my position eventually but did not agree initially could as easily be attributed to my poor initial explanation of my position as it could to the force of my subsequent arguments. I do not consider the discussion a waste of time (far from it!) because it gave us both the opportunity to examine and justify our views. My disagreement with you has also given us similar intellectual opportunities, but it is obvious that we are not going to arrive at an agreement. The discussion has now degenerated into a series of restatements of our own particular positions. It is just the sort of thing you see in formal debates with a long series of rebuttals. The first few exchanges are interesting, but after that both parties repeat themselves in astonished frustration that the other simply refuses to see the obvious. I think we have arrived at that point. I believe this is where we stand: You believe the Jonah Lehrer argument is both decisive and comprehensive. I believe that it is substantially correct, but insufficient to provide a comprehensive explanation for disagreement. I have reached the point where I am beginning to quietly speculate about your underlying assumptions and motivations – and I know all too well that that is not a good, fair, or reasonable place to be. You appear irritated, which doesn’t bode well either. I think it’s fair to say we leave each other unconvinced. I do not think that proves that either of us is, in general, irrational. I thank you for the discussion, and genuinely hope to hear from you again.
I love The Fireplace Delusion. Thank you for sharing. I wouldn't have a problem with us getting rid of wood fires at all - but my parents would. In the meantime, I'm going to warp it against its intended use and tell everyone that if they're okay with wood fires, then they can't give me shit about smoking. I don't think that's the article's intended purpose, though :)