Unintended Consequences

Part 2 - What Harm Is There?

In Part 1 I discussed the idea of questioning and coming to terms with the limits of our knowledge. Volumes more can be written on this topic. In fact, stay tuned -- in future posts I'll be revisiting some of the latest research on the brain and how we think and make some reading recommendations if such things tickle your fancy.

Today, though, I'd like to continue the conversation about wrong beliefs and why we need to rigorously protect ourselves as much as we can from them.

One of the questions unasked in my last post was "How does one discern which questions have value?" I'd like to offer these guidelines for sorting out the worthwhile questions from the worthless:

(1) Is the question answerable?
Beyond nonsense questions (for example -- with apologies to Noam Chomsky -- "Do colorless green ideas sleep furiously?"), there are some questions that simply can not be answered, for they are unverifiable and unfalsifiable. For example, "What is at the end of infinity?" "Does God exist?" "Are there gremlins in my head telling me what to do?"

There is no way that one can provide a definitive answer to these questions. (This, however, does not necessarily mean that the possibilities suggested by them can not be reasonably ascertained -- see the section in the previous post on Occam's Razor. Elaborate and sophisticated belief systems, whether theological or philosophical, are often the equivalent of "justification overkill.")

(2) Is the question structured so as to allow an honest answer?
If I ask you, "Why did you rape your sister?" I'm assuming a lot. That may seem like an extreme example but we frame questions like this all the time without thinking about it. For instance, any time we preface a question with "Wouldn't you agree ..." or "Do you agree ..." we anticipate the answer, expecting that there is one true answer. Similarly, the question "Why is popcorn better than celery?" contains an indirect assertion, that popcorn is in fact better than celery, when, in a shared reality, it is merely a preference.

Many of the conspiracy theory questions presume an underlying assumption. "Why does the government deny that chemtrails exist?" "How can we be sure that the mercury in street lights is safe?" "Why do Democrats want to take our guns?" "Why do Republicans always fall on the side of self-interest instead of the common good?" (I can assure you that the answer to each of the last two questions is "They don't.") Framing the question in such a way as to disort or influence the answer defeats the purpose of asking the question.

(3) What is the purpose of the question?
This is perhaps the most important aspect of discerning good questions from bad. Are you attempting to find out a fact or conclusion? Are you evaluating a fact or conclusion? Are you asking for an opinion? Are you inquiring about an individual experience or about a general perception? Are you sussing out a suspected principle? Are you interested in how a person feels or what they think? Are you trying to understand an abstract idea?

If you're not sure why you're asking the question, you can't reasonably expect the answer to satisfy.

The Socratic Approach

When we formulate a question, a good habit to get into is to stop and think about what we're asking. "Why do I think that?" "Is this always the case?" Questions about the question we ask help us to clarify our thinking and pinpoint what it is we're actually wanting to know.

"Am I asking to support an idea?" (or "What are my presuppositions in asking this question?") is an important question that can signal a bias in the question (such as a confirmation bias, which is a tendency to seek out and favor information that confirms our beliefs or hypotheses; or worse, it can be an indicator of motivated reasoning*.) It's important to know and challenge our own assumptions.

"What are the implications of this assumption?" Seeking out the consequences of a belief or a hypothesis will often point up logical fallacies or other errors in thinking. For instance, in the Gambler's Fallacy, a man believes that his run of bad luck must cease sometime; so if he just sticks it out, his luck will change for the good. In reality, the next game he plays is a completely separate and uncorrelated event (like a coin toss). There is no such thing as a "streak" of either good or bad luck when it comes to games of chance.

"Am I doubting evidence provided?" "Am I using lack of evidence as a reason for not accepting the premise?" If either, the questioner is exhibiting an argument from ignorance, assuming that a claim is true because it has not been proven false, or assuming it's false because it's not been proven true.

"Is there a counter argument that I would accept?" If the answer to this question is "No", then most likely the question is not concerned with fact-finding but with persuading, and typifies a baiting of the person asked. We must take into consideration that other perspectives are possible and attempt to see things from a different viewpoint.

There are dozens of errors we make in our thinking and reasoning. Still, thinking critically about a subject and the questions we ask about it is the best tool we have for sorting out truth from fiction.

The Unintended Consequences

What, you may ask, as my friend did, is the harm in asking any question?

I'll tell you.

Any amateur magician knows the value of misdirection, the "smoke and mirrors" that focus the audience's attention on the wrong things. This is necessary for the trick to work, for the audience to buy the illusion, even for them to enjoy the magic show.

The insidious consequence of asking the wrong questions is a similar misdirection. If something seemingly immediate demands our attention, it becomes a threat to be dealt with. (As tribal peoples, we are constantly on the lookout for foreign and out-of-the-ordinary circumstances. And it is not a far stretch for us to make up imagined enemies to combat in the absence of real ones, even if it's our own government.)

In this day and age, it's easy for our attention to be diverted from issues that should demand out attention -- water quality, mitigating climate change, widespread unemployment, poverty and hunger in these United States -- As long as an electorate can be preoccupied by non-existent threats, imagined boogie-men, and invented distractions, they can remain ignorant of the important issues that truly can affect the health of the populace, the well-being of the planet, and our time on this pale blue dot.

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* Motivated reasoning occurs when people cling to false beliefs despite overwhelming evidence. Such cognitive dissonance motivates them to search, not for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, but to search for information that confirms what they already believe.

Unintended Consequences

Part 1 - How Can We Know?

"The art and science of asking questions in the source of all knowledge." -- Thomas Berger

"The key to wisdom is knowing all the right questions." --  John Simone, Jr.

First of all, a happy, happy new year to all of my readers. It's hard to believe that time no longer seems to be on my side. :)

Sometimes it seems that I wouldn't write anything if I hadn't been prompted to do so by emails from my brother (last post: http://8radideas.blogspot.com/2012/09/off-charts.html) or conversations with my friends (this post). Whatever the motivation, at least I'm putting thoughts in ink. Ehr, in pixels.

This time the post is inspired by a conversation I had with a friend about chemtrails.

For those of you who, like me, had never heard of these "chemical trails" before -- a take, of course, on the condensation trails, or contrails, left by aircraft -- suffice it to say that there are people who, since the mid-90's, have claimed that the government is conducting experiments in the atmosphere over our very own America, releasing something from planes that don't appear to be simple water vapor contrails. The purpose of these experiments? (1) To change the weather or (2) to release biological/chemical agents into the atmosphere or (3) to regulate solar heat and radiation or (4) to control the population.

Now I don't think my friend thinks that chemtrails are a real threat (or even a real phenomenon*), although his wife might, but I mention them only because discussing them brought us to the subject that is my real topic for this post.

While I am a big fan of questioning authority and the status quo and established wisdom, I try to keep sight of the fact that the boundaries of my knowledge are finite. I can't know everything -- I can't even begin to. (I would put forth that, since the advent of modern specialization in information, the days of the Renaissance Man or Woman are long gone, but that's a topic for a different time.)

But this doesn't concern me as much as you might think. In fact, it's a comfort, in a parallel fashion to my atheism (which allows me to cherish every moment of this brief life, content in my attempt to live it well) -- in that we share our ignorance, and answers, when they come, are the result of a shared process. And a 2012 Scientific American article** asserts that ignorance will always grow quicker than information acquired, simply because questioning inevitably leads to more puzzles. The author declares that "the essence of what scientists do ...[is] make distinctions between qualities of ignorance."

In this perspective, questions are far more important than answers.

My friend believes that all questioning is good, that questions have an innate social value.

I, on the other hand, would assert that some questions are just a waste of time. That there are such things as good questions and bad questions. And that the question displays qualities of ignorance or knowing.

If I wanted to, I could come up with hundreds of things that could possibly be true. For example, that the automobile manufacturers have designed the car's ventilation system such that a pheromone is released while driving, thereby making driving a pleasurable experience and in effect creating an addiction to driving.

Is such a thing possible? Certainly. Is such a thing plausible? Of course. Is it probable? No.

[Is the answer to the last question intuitive? Not necessarily. Is it logically deduced? Not necessarily. We must often apply Occam's razor, where the fewer assumptions required for an explanation, the more likely the explanation is. For example, to assume all the steps required for the auto manufacturers to implement such a plot - making the dispenser invisible to the eyes of mechanics, keeping the lips of the assembly persons tightly closed so that no leaks about the device reach the press, insuring the gas is undetectable, and so on - requires far more assumptions than, say, the conclusion that driving itself is addictive.]

The thing about this example is that it's easily verifiable. Take apart a random sampling of automobile ventilation systems and check for the means to such an end.

And this is how science works. One posits a hypothesis. Then, in addition to confirming it, one attempts to prove that the hypothesis is incorrect. Otherwise, because of confirmation bias and motivated reasoning, one runs the danger of ignoring evidence on its face. That's why falsifiability is as important as verifiability.

With most theories of the conspiracy sort, proponents attempt to falsify what's seen as, for example, the government's explanation, but fail to attempt to do the same with their own assumptions. They rule out evidence as being biased but fail to see their own bias. It's like the supreme court justice who can't understand how anyone could see the cross as anything other than a tribute to our dead veterans, whether they be Christian or Jewish or Muslim.***

And if an expert in the law can make such a mistake, how much easier is it for a layman to read the lay of the land incorrectly?

Yet it is the exception that the majority of experts will make the same mistake. Even our courts are a bit like science in that, over time, they are self-correcting. Some terrible decisions have been handed down, but after a while they are seen for what they are and reversed.

In the same way it makes no sense to let the layperson, unschooled on the topic at hand, propound on solutions to problems that he can't explain. We have to resort to the informed opinions of the specialist.

Would you trust a highly qualified electrician to stand in for you to tally your books for a day? Yet we seem ready and willing to accept a non-expert's opinion on something as complicated as climate science just because it seems expedient or because we might disagree with the relevant consensus opinion or because we think someone's trying to hide something from us.

And this is my principal point when it comes to questions, knowledge, and focus: We can't always judge whether a question posed is a legitimate concern or a fantasy, but, in this age of specialization, when it comes to answering such a question or assessing a claim that falls outside of our own area of expertise, we must defer to the relevant consensus opinion of the experts.

Otherwise we will quickly use up our resources on frivolous investigations into countless phenomena, allocating precious little to the substantive and far more important issues of our day.

Stay tuned for Part 2: What Harm Is There?

* Spend some time at http://www.panacea-bocaf.org/chemtrails.htm

 watching the videos and reading. Then view this skeptical response:   http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/chemtrail_conspiracy/

. Let me know by leaving a comment which side you come down on.

** What Science Wants To Know

*** See The Myth of Choice by Kenneth Greenfield, pp. 88-91. Also, for quoted comments by Judge Scalia, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/08/scalia-defends-cross-on-p_n_313625.html