The War Between Science and Bullshit
We live in an Era where information is SO plentiful and readily available that it is possible to find “credible” texts, videos, opinions, and “papers” that will “confirm” just about ANY position and belief you can possibly come up with, including the most ridiculous claims. This is a problem.
Confirmation bias and the era of “everything is relative”
Want to NOT believe there is climate disruptions? Want to believe there IS climate disruption? Want to believe “white male privilege” is OK? Want to believe animals don’t suffer “that badly” in animal agriculture? Want to believe there are no major environmental problems? Want to believe we “need” to eat animals to be healthy and energetic? Want to believe immigrants are a major problem to national security? NO PROBLEM! Name me your desired belief and I’ll find you 100 texts and videos and books that will at least SEEM credible and rigorous enough to hold ground and confirm your belief.
Anything goes.
To add to this general context of nonsense, people have become so incapable of sustained focus and concentration that they literally make up their minds on the TITLES of articles, as long as it confirms their biases and preferences.
This is dangerous because any charismatic and manipulative person can essentially convince hoards of clueless people that complete nonsense actually has solid bases while it is utterly false, because people don’t know “how to think” and are more convinced by anecdotes and dramatic declarations than by facts and rigour.
I read books. For real. Crazy, I know. I mean I actually read long books from start to end. About 2 or 3 per month, not counting long articles and texts. I learn shit, I get challenged, and I refine my positions and understanding on various subjects. Try it!
I tell people I am against any form of corporate taxation and for strong progressive taxation of total income to individuals. People on “the left” and “the right” blast me. They don’t understand that there are reasons for this that are rooted in… you know… reasearch, data, deductive reasoning, and proper statistical analysis.
A famous economist once said “data can be made to say any story, but rigorous statistical analysis with a properly constructed dataset can not.” I agree with this. The problem is you can’t “educate” people in a “1 minute sound bite” about logical flaws such as reverse causality, missing variables bias, correlation versus causality, cherry picking, sample bias, anecdotes vs properly made sampling, surveys, and probality, and a plethora other such issues that plague modern times and are taking large countries and regions in potentially toxic directions.
In the Internet Era of boosted Egos and infinite information and opinions, people simply focus their readings and information on sources that will only confirm their views: media, articles, social circle, etc. Joe Blogger who has not gone through any form of learning about facts, rigorous analysis, or proper deductive reasoning has as much weight as a highly qualified person.
On the “relativity of Truth”
This has brought an understandable lack of trust in everything and causes the phenomenon of “relative Truth” and simply tagging any news that you don’t like as “fake news.” Compounding this issue is that “fake news” actually DOES exist, so it becomes incredibly confusing and next to impossible to discern between “truth” and bullshit.
I happen to think that raping women is objectively wrong. PERIOD. It is NOT a relative concept or a subject of debate. What HAS changed over time is the social norm about such a practice. Same for the murder of weaker peoples or species and many other practices. I happen to think that North Korea is total insanity and that, although FAR from “perfect and ideal”, modern democracies are indeed “better” (dare I say “superior?”) than such retarted systems as seen in North Korea and several other countries. Yes, there is such a thing as “right” and “wrong” and no it is not as “relative” as most people think.
The “everything is relative and it all depends on your point of view” is a poison that has been spreading due to Internet and infinite supply of information.
In such a context, how to discern “Truth” from bullshit?
If reasoning is rooted in bias, denial, avoidance of facts and reality, it is BS, even if the person doing the “reasoning” is qualified. On the other hand, if a person has appropriate logic and reasoning and uses rigorous and credible data and facts to support a position, then at least the debate is in good faith, even if you don’t agree with the conclusions. Opinions and “research” that are done within a context of financing by lobbies (sometimes it is well hidden due to many layers of intermediation) with special interests and dogma are not “good faith.”
Only fully independent academic research that is peer reviewed and fully transparent about potential conflicts of interests can cut through the BS… and EVEN THEN: ideally you have a majority of papers that at least come to roughly the same general conclusions, and the ones who do not can be responded to with a point-by-point well-documented response. THAT is science. Anything else is bullshit.
Science… I mean REAL science, done by independent academics who are following proper protocol and statistical analysis with quality data and policed by peers who are also proceeding with intellectual honesty. THAT kind of science is the key to moving us forward away from barbarism and tyranny and towards a better world.
Human psychology and Ego
When science and hard facts are a challenge to status quo and people’s preferences and opinions, a complex web of social and psychological strategies suddenly crops up, all supported by pro-status-quo lobbies and social groups, the influence of which is componded by huge financial capacity and social and policy influence. They sell illusion, aka “bullshit”, and individuals who don’t LIKE the conclusions of science and facts will “buy the illusions” to cajole their denial and avoidance.
Denial, avoidance, illusion, dogma, identity. Toxic fruits from the tree of Ego.
It creates distorsions of reality and explains why normal people turn into tormentors and exploiters in the right conditions. It explains why people deny facts and reality with extreme resistance and insistance and turn the whole thing into an identity debate “us vs them.” Social norms and status quo are the default values, but they are by NO means optimal or ethically acceptable. Rape, slavery, forced marriage, killing gays, and more were all once “social norms” and status quo. They all fell. Sure, slavery and all other forms of atrocities exist, expect they are no longer legal and no longer generally accepted as “normal” by the majority.
After much pondering about the resistance to facts, science, and reality I see in many otherwise “good and well-intentioned” people, I think the level of resistance people have to facts and to change is proportional to their “inner suffering” caused by mental noise, lingering fear and insecurity and self worth issues, and the confusion inherent to our fast-paced work-work-work lives oriented on paying bills and “letting off some pressure” in various forms: overeating of unhealthy food, porn, TV and news binging, social media binging, drugs and alcohol, buying “stuff”, social positioning, more work, sports, and so many others. We collectively and individually have trouble extracting ourselves from the comfort of “ignorance and illusion” and taking responsibility in proportion to the power we have as individuals and as a species. The problem is that this clinging to ignorance and illusion has reached a crisis level for ethical, social, spiritual, and policy reasons.
It is time for intellectual honesty and proper thinking. There are major issues confronting us today, on MANY angles, encompassing environmental degradation and species extinctions to ethical questions with far-reaching consequences in terms of legal frameworks in all countries to taxes and governance to population movements, immigration, and social tensions. They must be met with science, facts, knowledge, nuance and reality. Not bullshit. I sure hope we will rise to the challenge. Clap and share!
Pascal Bedard
