Brandolini’s Law, Emotional Certainties, and Effective Bullshit Detection
A 2016 article in nature.com calls into attention one of the obscure nomenclature in the information age — Brandolini’s Law.¹ A software engineer by profession, Alberto Brandolini gained worldwide fame for coining the Bullshit Assymetry Principle, now better known as Brandolini’s Law.
The law states that:
The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.²
Of course, it must be noted that pseudo-laws like this are not in keeping with the ontology of the laws of physics whereby the latter is expected to apply ubiquitously. The point it seeks to get across however, is quite clear.
It is unfortunate that in the age of information, tremendous effort must be made to put bullshits through the sieve of rational discourse. Tom Nichols recently wrote a book entitled The Death of Expertise. He argues that while many considers the internet as the root cause of rampant misinformation, it appears that the internet aggravated, rather than fueled an existing psychological phenomenon that those who know little speak much while those who know much speak little.³
It is the initial influx of information that makes one think he knows a lot. But as one digs deeper, he realizes that the well of knowledge is beyond the human capacity to fathom and he discovers that there are more questions than answers. This phenomenon is more commonly known as the Dunning-Kruger effect.⁴
The epistemic humility of scholars in their field of expertise is often shadowed by the apparent confidence of popularizers, often speaking outside their area of expertise without having appropriate training to weigh competing views.
Jordan Belfort in his book, Way of the Wolf discussed his sales strategy which he calls the Straight Line System.⁵ There, he noted how Emotional Certainty trumps Logical Certainty every time. What he meant by this is that people know deep down that logical certainty is what they need to look for. However, emotional certainty often clouds logical certainty when people make decisions. Logical certainty is the type of certainty one looks for in matters of truth such as, who the 3rd president of the United States was or when was the Google IPO announced. There’s no question that the former was Thomas Jefferson and the latter was August 19, 2004 and there’s an enormous body of evidence supporting these. On the other hand, emotional certainty is the type of certainty whereby one feels he can trust someone or some information even without sufficient evidence to back the claims.
The latter poses extreme danger. For when one is not cognizant of his bias towards emotional certainties, it makes one much more succeptible to bullshits. Belfort in his book noted that confidence, eloquence, and tonality are three of the most important elements that makes one fall into the illusion of expertise. One must be very careful of such. For these three elements are effective means for manipulation. Irresponsible usage of it can cause tremendous harm. Should one doubt his analysis, one must at least acknowledge that Belfort was once imprisoned for fraud, scamming as much as 200 million USD off people using this technique.
Case in point, consider one of the most popular best seller in recent years, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Since it’s launch in 2015, this book has found itself around the best seller list for a respectable time. It wasn’t until two weeks ago that I was asked multiple times to comment on the 12th chapter entitled the Law of Religion.
I consider myself a Christian and am well read in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. I wrote several academic papers around philosophical issues on theodicies, the ontological argument, and the trinity. I have read the Qur’an, Sahih Bukhari and Muslim and parts of the other compilations in the Kutub al-Sittah, Sirat Rasul Allah, Ibn Kathir, all of the Old and New Testaments, and all known fragments of Christian works in the first 200 years. I’ve read Eusebius, all the pseudopigraphic Gospels including the Gospel of Barnabas. Suffice to say, my knowledge on religious issues in the three Abrahamic religions gives me hopefully, enough credentials to critique Harari’s claims in the book, as must be rightfully argued.⁶
In page 243 for example, he would argue that religion must “insist on spreadings its belief to everyone” and in the next paragraph notes that Buddhism, a non-missionary religion, is a religion.⁷ He seems not cognizant of the inaccuracy of his claims. For while a few Buddhists would indeed be missiological, the faith itself is not.
In page 255 for example, he noted that monotheism cannot account for the problem of evil. One which dualism could.⁸ This is of course false. While of course still being argued today, Islam can assert Qadr as the answer for the problem of evil. That is, divine foreordination. The Christian camp offers more variety. Calvinism falls closely into the Islamic concept of Qadr while other schools of thought, such as Molinism: the idea that the current reality is the most feasible among all alternatives, is ignored by Harari. He made no mention of various theodicies such as the Irenaean Theodicy, the idea that latches on perfect being theology and eventual perfectionism of non-god eternal objects. He made no mention of Process Theodicy, glossed over the Augustinian Theodicy, and made no mention of Open Theism. Of course, in a book intended for lay persons, such complexities must be left untouched. However, to make sweeping claims under the guise of confidence and eloquence clouds sound judgment over matters of facts.
In page 256, he noted that the Manichaeans are on track to rid Rome of Christian dominance yet provided no footnotes for fact checking.⁹ This can be shown to be a false claim masquerading as truth. The Manichaeans are a very much persecuted group that they could not find room for growth until they were eventually wiped out. The Council of Nicea, Constantinople, Carthage, and Ephesus, important Christian events in the years Manichaeans “flourished” has all but ignored them in light of important philosophical and pastoral matters such as the nature of Christ and the Canon of the Christian Scriptures. Had they indeed threatened Christian dominance in the Roman Empire, should not Christians have paid attention to it over Arianism?
In page 257, he noted that the jihads and the crusades were inspired by men thinking that God needed their help.¹⁰ This is not true. There is no extant document today around the jihads and crusades that says this. None. Yet he says this with dispassionate eloquence. One must indeed be highly suspicious of books and articles (like this you’re reading) claiming to be well researched yet lacking relevant footnotes for fact checking.
Many more could be said. Yet the point hopefully was brought forth. Confidence, eloquence, and tonality are tools that may be used for good, yet they can also be tools used to mislead. One must be cognizant of his inclination towards emotional certainties over logical certainties. One must strive to achieve the latter.
The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it. Think well.
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¹ “Take the Time and Effort to Correct Misinformation.” Nature News. Accessed March 13, 2019. https://www.nature.com/news/take-the-time-and-effort-to-correct-misinformation-1.21106.
² Brandolini, Alberto. “The Bullshit Asimmetry: The Amount of Energy Needed to Refute Bullshit Is an Order of Magnitude Bigger than to Produce It.” Twitter. January 11, 2013. Accessed March 13, 2019. https://twitter.com/ziobrando/status/289635060758507521.
³ Nichols, Tom. The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters. Place of Publication Not Identified: Oxford University Press, 2019.
⁴ Murphy, Mark. “The Dunning-Kruger Effect Shows Why Some People Think They’re Great Even When Their Work Is Terrible.” Forbes. January 24, 2017. Accessed March 13, 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2017/01/24/the-dunning-kruger-effect-shows-why-some-people-think-theyre-great-even-when-their-work-is-terrible/#28c4020c5d7c.
⁵ Belfort, Jordan. Way of the Wolf: Straight Line Selling: Master the Art of Persuasion, Influence, and Success. New York: Gallery Books, 2018.
⁶ One must be reminded that should he intend to understand the legitimate teachings of a certain belief system, the best way to do so is not to draw insights from contemporary thought leaders but rather, to go all the way back to how the earliest adherents of the faith system understood the teaching of the religious leader. They had the benefit of linguistic, geographic, cultural, and chronological proximity to the religious leaders which modern thinkers have diluted access to.
⁷ Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Random House UK, 2019. 243.
⁸ Ibid., 255.
⁹ Ibid., 256.
¹⁰ Ibid., 257.
