Sep 16, 2016

How Humans in 2016 Became Resistant to Facts

Why do so many of your friends and family members and colleagues strike you as “fact resistant” these days?

That question is actually less relevant than this one: Why do so many of them think you’re fact-resistant these days?

Trust me, they don’t walk away from political debates with you thinking, “Geez, I’m not sure how much longer I can withstand Cory’s brutal logic, perfect objectivity and evidence-based reasoning.” They’re rather shaking their heads, ruing how you could be so foolish and blind to the things that obviously matter.

For most of recorded history, humans haven’t seen “facts” as the whole story. Neil Postman noted that a wise modern teacher trying to describe the economy would use statistics and graphs and pie charts — but a wise teacher in ancient times would probably use a parable. And the ancient teacher and the modern one would each find the other’s approach to be crazy.

Here’s the thing: the ancient approach is coming back into fashion. All parties today, more than they realize, are using parables and stories that seem “fact resistant.” That’s because they’ve become cynical about facts — especially about how facts can be exploited to tell only one side of a story.

A Longing for Magic

This is supposedly an Age of Advanced Science, but it’s actually an Age of Disillusionment with Science.* That’s prompted an intellectual U-turn, involving a renewed hunger for magic (or its successor, pseudoscience), an unusual attraction to charlatans and quacks, and an overpowering temptation to side with one tribe against other tribes at any cost.

* on second thought, it may be better to call it “disillusionment and impatience with the limits of science.”

People want classical (empirical) science far less than they say they do. Liberals today claim to have a monopoly on science … until you inform them that scientists don’t share their concerns about GMOs and vaccines. Suddenly, those liberals start talking about how those scientists are pawns of corporate interests. And conservatives have long mocked climate science that they insist has biases, agendas and payoffs built in to the latest findings.

Clinton supporters and Trump supporters are shocked by the other side’s intellectual or moral blindness. But this isn’t simply about Clinton or Trump; a Sanders vs. Cruz campaign would involve similar hyperbole and paranoia about how the other side is “destroying what’s sacred to us.”

A prominent social psychologist noted recently that, when an objective fact goes up against a sacred belief, the fact usually loses. That applies to liberals and conservatives equally. It’s a starting point for humility and post-partisanship if no side believes it’s objectively smarter than the other.

An Age of Charlatans

Science hasn’t solved our problems, and it’s in fact confused us about many of the issues we used to believe were settled — we can’t even agree on genders and bathrooms today.

But classic, empirical science isn’t meant to solve all problems or offer all answers. It’s a humble, thorough testing of ideas and concepts. It lives forever in uncertainty.

And yet … humans want and need certainty. And so a vacuum has naturally arisen, to be filled by charlatans, quacks and saviors who say the right things.

Of course, science is still powerful enough that many of today’s charlatans often have to dress themselves up in the robes of science — by offering pseudoscience formulas for making you healthy, popular or powerful. And given how the “placebo effect” is real, these charlatans can be pretty convincing, at least for a while.

Yet other charlatans are simply able to build large followings by mocking “the experts” — by seeming to flat-out revel in ignorance.

But that’s not all there is to it. Such charlatans are still guided by “sacred beliefs,” and they cater to others who are driven by similar beliefs.

In short, thinking that those who disagree with you are “stupid” or “ill-informed” will get you nowhere. This isn’t about stuffing information down their throats. This is about realizing there’s a battle of principles going on, that you’re being deaf to the principles that they’re trying to articulate — and that you’re probably refusing to consider the evidence that they have been trying to offer to you.

In fact, you are probably as fact-resistant as they are. That may be the real problem — but it may the beginning of a solution.

www.RobAsghar.com