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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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In 2003 nearly half of all Americans falsely assumed that the U.S. government had found solid evidence for a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. What is more, almost a quarter of us believed that investigators had all but confirmed the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a 2003 report by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes and Knowledge Networks, a polling and market research firm. How did the true situation in Iraq become so grossly distorted in American minds?
Many people have attributed such misconceptions to a politically motivated disinformation campaign to engender support for the armed struggle in Iraq. We do not think the deceptions were premeditated, however. Instead they are most likely the result of common types of reasoning errors, which appear frequently in discussions in the news media and which can easily fool an unsuspecting public.
News shows often have an implicit bias that may motivate the portrayal of facts and opinions in misleading ways, even if the information presented is largely accurate. Nevertheless, by becoming familiar with how spokespeople can create false impressions, media consumers can learn to ignore certain claims and thereby avoid getting duped. We have detected two general types of fallacies—one of them well known and the other newly identified—that have permeated discussion of the Iraq War and that are generally ubiquitous in political debates and other discourse.
Spinning Straw into Fool’s Gold
One common method of spinning information is the so-called straw man argument. In this tactic, a person summarizes the opposition’s position inaccurately so as to weaken it and then refutes that inaccurate rendition. In a November 2005 speech, for example, President George W. Bush responded to questions about pulling troops out of Iraq by saying, “We’ve heard some people say, pull them out right now. That’s a huge mistake. It’d be a terrible mistake. It sends a bad message to our troops, and it sends a bad message to our enemy, and it sends a bad message to the Iraqis.” The statement that unnamed “people” are advocating a troop withdrawal from Iraq “right now” is a straw man, because it exaggerates the opposing viewpoint. Not even the most stalwart Bush adversaries backed an immediate troop withdrawal. Most proposed that the soldiers be sent home over several months, a more reasonable and persuasive plan that Bush undercut with his straw man.
The straw man is used in countless other contexts as well. In his acceptance speech at the 1996 Democratic Convention, for instance, Bill Clinton opined: “… with all respect [to Bob Dole], we do not need to build a bridge to the past. We need to build a bridge to the future.” Dole did discuss restoring the values of an earlier America, but Clinton falsely implied that Dole was only looking backward (whereas Clinton was looking forward). People may use a straw man to discredit theories to which they do not subscribe. Characterizing evolution, for example, as “all random chance” is a straw man argument; it misrepresents a complex theory that only partly rests on the randomness of mutations that may lead to better chances of survival.
Recently, in a 2006 paper co-authored with Scott F. Aikin, one of us (Talisse) documented a twist on the straw man tactic. In what Talisse dubs a weak man argument, a person sets up the opposition’s weakest (or one of its weakest) arguments or proponents for attack, as opposed to misstating a rival’s position as the straw man argument does. In a July 2007 edition of Talking Points, Bill O’Reilly took on a claim by the New York Times that we had lost the war in Iraq by saying that “the New York Times declared defeat in Iraq Sunday on its editorial page, and there’s no question the antiwar movement has momentum.” (The editorial actually said that “some opponents of the Iraq war are toying with the idea of American defeat,” but let us assume that O’Reilly’s characterization was correct.)
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87 Comments
Add CommentThis article doesn't begin to cover the ground. The authors describe (quite well) just two of the many ways politicians mislead us. And by saying it isn't deliberate, they mark themselves as naive. I'd like to see an article like this by someone more experienced, or by this pair -- with more experience.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe do not think the deceptions were premeditated, however.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding.
In what Talisse dubs a weak man argument ...
… and I propose that we rename this to the Faux Colmes Argument.
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Edited by Ivan A. D'Mocracy at 01/29/2008 8:02 PM
Characterizing evolution as a complex theory misrepresents that in fact it's an unproven theory and thu a belief, not science...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSCIAM might well consider this article when addressing human-driven global warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is SciAm's motivation in choosing 2 anti-Bush examples? Were I describing this anti-duping concept, I would have chosen something not currently in the news. The longer objective view would have given me more perspective. As it was, I felt the article was manipulating me as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow, some dupes sure replied on this thread:
1) Notice, the second example was Bill Clinton duping the public on Bob Dole.
2) People who don't know evolution is a theory in the same way that gravity is a theory actually read SciAm?
3) And global warming guy? C'mon... Even Bush refers to some innocuous phenomenon called global climate change and suggests measures to address it.
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Edited by wdlewis47 at 01/31/2008 8:30 PM Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
How about the error of not being able to see error because you share it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI see that error all the time in Scientific American. I've been reading SA since I was in jr. high and it helped instill the love of science in me all the way through college to a degree in math and physics.
I have never been able to abide the insufferable, smug and noxious leftwing politics that emanates from its pages on an ever increasing basis however. In their own way, the lefties at SA are as hidebound and annoying as any creation science twit, so please spare us the sanctimonious lectures on "common fallacies."
-Ken
www.kenstech.com
Then again, there were millions of Americans, and the vast majority of observers worldwide who did not fall for the charade at all, and were able to figure out the fallacy in the arguments presented for war in spite of the blizzard of fear and misinformation being put forth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps we could have an analysis of how some people avoid being fooled when everyone around them is.
That said, you need to look again at your unsupported blanket statement that the deception was somehow not intentional. Scientific indeed.
I don't listen or watch any network news programs because of this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisET literature is full of extreme examples of deception.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis may be to help us to understand how our fellow humans are fooling us.
If we can understand ET, we can then understand what our nuclear war fighting elite have planned for us all.
Characterizing evolution as a complex theory misrepresents that in fact it's an unproven theory and thu a belief, not science...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this?
How did your university give you a degree. Its obvious your university is worthless.
I hate all people like you who ignore science and want to tell people what to do and what to believe.
"Characterizing evolution as a complex theory misrepresents that in fact it's an unproven theory and thu a belief, not science..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvolution is a fact, as well established as gravity; the geological record is as incontrovertible as dropping a rock from a tall building and watching it fall. Scientists have complex theories about the processes that drive evolution, which are about as well-supported as Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Thank you for providing another excellent example of the straw man argument.
I think that to suggest that the media messes with your mind is to let everyone else of too lightly. Let's not forget the religious leaders, the polititions, the schools, the police, the advertising industry, the banks, the medical ...... Most of us do not have the capacity to judge when we are being had and there are huge profit machines who spend big bucks to take us for a ride. A classic example of being had is that brushing your teeth reduces cavities. Next time your siting in your living room with a lion or a monkey or an elephant, ask him how often he brushes his teeth or goes to the dentist. I stopped having cavities 15 years ago when I stopped using an abrasive (toothpaste) on my teeth. You really have to scratch your head hard if you don't want to get taken by the media or anyone else.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"We do not think the deceptions were premeditated, however. " How can anyone take you seriously when make ridiculous statements like this. Through PNAC, Cheney-Bush and the elite criminal cabal that rules our nation PLANNED the Iraq war before Bush was elected. Governments have been using the same propaganda techniques to dupe populations into wars for at least the last 100 years. To now say it's not intentional is absurd. So who owns you, by the way. What corporation are you a lackey for?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGetting Duped: How the Media Messes with Your Mind is messing with your mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe statement that unnamed people are advocating a troop withdrawal from Iraq right now is a straw man, because it exaggerates the opposing viewpoint. Not even the most stalwart Bush adversaries backed an immediate troop withdrawal. Yes they did! Nobody get get troops out all at once; it probably would take 3 or more months once the decision was made to withdraw to get troops and equipment out of the region. Bad article based on bad premise-someone is pushing an anti-Bush point of view.
It seems 'the media' includes Scientific American.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscf the recent piece, here, headlined, roughly:
'Coal ash more radioactive than nuclear waste.'
On READING the piece seems the
headline writer had 'invisibly redefined' 'Nuclear Waste'
from the usual: 'the left overs from creating fuel and operating a nuke plant'
to:
'stack emissions from a normally operating reactor''.
Straw Man, i think....
best
We, unfortunately, live in the world of almost unlimited freedom of expressing our views and with very little, if any, responsibilities attached to it. Neither politicians nor journalists are held responsible for distortions that may have huge implications. Exposing some of the distortion methods is a step in right direction, but leaving it to general public to untangle itself from often carefully laid web is wishful thinking, to say the least. (Advertising industry has also a lot to answer for.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe need ethics with responsibility and respect for others as cornerstones. And we need social mechanisms that will expose unethical statements or articles.
Damir Ibrisimovic
The authors state that they "do not think that the deceptions [of the Bush administration regarding Iraq and WMD] were premeditated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn a journal devoted to science, one would expect that the authors would derive their opinion from factual evidence. In this case, however, they appear to be basing their conclusion either on the words spoken by the administration (obviously problematic) or on their ability to know what others are thinking (quite remarkable, if true).
If they had hewn more closely to scientific principles, the authors should have simply said that "no one knows for certain whether the deceptions of the administration were intentional."
A major point missed here is that the responsibility isn't solely the media's, but also the public's. Even well intentioned people will make their strongest argument for what they believe in. They'll present the facts as they see them, but they might not present everything even when they're trying to be fair.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo article will have enough space to say everything about as complex an issue as the Iraq War or Evolution. We, the readers, have a responsibility to read critically, to do more than blindly follow or believe. We need to be critical thinkers with anything we read or hear and to compare and contrast opinions.
Whether you agree or disagree with the examples presented isn't the point, what's important in the article is identifying faulty arguments and helping us to identify them. Arguing about the examples rather than the substance of the article goes in the wrong direction.
If I could ask SciAm for one thing, it would be to include more about Critical Thinking research.
It might prove useful if opinions were dispensed as if they were personal ads. Instead of SWFP, we might see Bill O'Reilley, WMCaPlCoRHb, white male, Catholic, pro-life, Republican, homophobe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTruth in advertising would be a lot easier to decipher.
If Aristotelian Logic were a required course in all high schools (and hopefully, Ethics), deceptive straw man/weak man tactics would be futile. However, I agree that if the authors don't believe the Bush Administration deceptions were premeditated, I have some Brooklyn Bridge stock that they might be interested in.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is logical to assume that media, as a business must be loyal first to the guys that pay the ads (and therefore sponsor them) than to the people who consumes it (press might have more freedom here, anyway), so media will invariably fall for one side or the other, and protect it's sponsors interests in that way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCreationists, ET groupies and the like use this to discredit anything that goes against their cannon (even when it is NOT science) eg, a creationist might say ET conspiracy is false because it doesn't fit with his view of the world, and a ET groupie might say that the Bible doesn't mention aliens, thus is false.
as an add on:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you want to look at information from a neutral perspective, you should search for sources that neither win nor loose anything about it, or try to average the weights of two radically opposed views.
This article is itself a strawman and attempts to lessen the argument Conservatives aim at Liberals that they lack the fortitude to defend the US. Contrary to this article, there were many people demanding the US pull out immediately. Google 'get out of Iraq now' and '2005' and see the thousands of withdrawl articles and statements. General Wesley Clark even quoted in an interview "say we did follow the desires of some people who say, Just pull out, and pull out now. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2 more examples
Published on Thursday, October 27, 2005 by the News & Observer (North Carolina) Out of Iraq, Now
by Stan Goff "It's time to face these facts head-on and to get out of Iraq now. Immediately."
Published on Wednesday, November 8, 2006 by the Toronto Star U.S. Must Get out of Iraq — Now
by Rory Stewart "We need to withdraw immediately to avoid further damage."
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Edited by 2008RealityCheck at 02/05/2008 3:04 PM
Ironically, the choice of examples used by the authors here itself illustrates the validity of their observations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe examples you pick suggest this article is more about your own political biases than science. The distinction, for example, between a position of pulling out troops "right now" (mild hyperbole and well-recognized as such) vs "several months" is insignificant for the purposes of the argument being made by the speaker. You would do better to try to figure out the duping media sources for why 36% of Americans believe 9-11 was in "inside job." As far as WMDs in Iraq, I seem to recall that in 2003 nearly everyone was agreeing Iraq had 2 types of WMDs and wanted to get the third. I find it sad that Sci Amer has come to running articles like this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI had considered posting this as a link on my own blog with the following presentation: "This is an outstanding analysis which is very informative if you can get by the obvious bias and understand the core intention of the author. In it is discussed the straw man argument and the weak man argument."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, the bias is so evident that I cannot bring myself to advertise such a biased analysis.
Perhaps your next post should be one about biased analysis versus scientific analysis.
Complaints about the examples are entirely beside the point. To charge someone with committing a fallacy is *not* to claim that his conclusion is false (in fact, it's not even to necessarily *oppose* the conclusion); rather, it is simply to say that his argument does not support (much less demonstrate) the truth of the conclusion. So to say that, say, Bush has committed the fallacy on some particular occasion is *not* to imply any evaluation of his position. Since nothing in the article entails a judgment about the truth of the positions promoted by those used as examples, it's difficult to make sense of the charge that the article is "biased."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen identifying a fallacy, what matters is the *form* of the inference, not the *content* of the premises. The examples were chosen because they happen to be those most likely to be familiar to a general audience.
I would have thought that this fundamental point of logic would be obvious to SciAm Mind readers. I guess I was mistaken
It is interesting how many posters have proven themselves to be incapable of logical thought. To every dangerously immature maniac, there is only a choice between their point of view and "wrong". These are the types that I feel are most likely to fall for the strawman/weakman trickery. The obvious fact that most didn't even bother to read most of the article before posting (as proven by their own statements) shows just how dangerous they are in a democracy. This article was simply pointing out how politicians and the media use manipulation to accomplish their task. Current examples that readers have personal memories of do a much better job of making the article relevant. It is truely appalling that the most ravenously satanic behavior comes from the Christian right. As a priest, I find it disgusting that so many have such weak faith that they can't abide religious tolerance. Christ never taught religious persecution so where do these sociopaths get it from?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's see, Iraq used chemical weapons in its war with Iran. Therefore, it had them a number of years before the US invasion. The same man was in charge, Saddam. Is it reasonable to assume that they (he) gave up that capability without telling anyone? Looks like he did. Who'd a thunk? Anyway, the descrptions of the straw man and weak man techniques were informative to me and probably to most people without a political ax to grind. Sometimes we are just blinded by our own ideas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article does not belong in this magazine. Not because of its topic but because it is so shamefully unscientific. Do the editors no longer trust in the intelligence of thier readers - that they can give us a political article telling us what to watch out for while doing that very thing themselves? This article is full of casual personal opinions and one sided examples, i.e. straw/weak man arguments. I would expect this tactic from the very people you attack (OReilley/Fox), not yourselves. Please maintain more integrity in the future or you may lose your credibility as a premium scientific magazine. This is becoming a serious problem to myself and many other readers that, even when in agreement, the political nature of this magazine does nothing to elevate its objective. Get back to the science "sciam" and start to show some restraint. This should not be the place to wage any political battles or vent political frustrations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--
Edited by jcooney at 02/08/2008 3:31 PM
"it's difficult to make sense of the charge that the article is "biased.""
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo sir, when every single example one uses is from a conservative the bias is clearly evident.
I could find plenty of left wing examples to be used.
If you note in my original reply I was intending on cross blogging this because the premise is excellent however, the bias is overwhelmingly evident.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think it's still good and a nice way of trying to open up mainsteam thinking. The biggest gripe I have is where Fox News, CNN, NPR, and PBS were compared. While they all have their unfair biases and probably not surprising those watching FNC and CNN are going to be more out of the limelight, I would have liked to have seen the authors put more emphasis that every news network has their bias and no one should solely get their source of news from the newspaper, radio, or tv.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthis is nothing... just go check out the book "coercion: why we listen to what "they" say" by douglas rushkoff
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article does stimulate some contemplation of media bias and subsequent plagiarism. Two examples, quite apart, come to mind. Firstly: Global warming as a result of human activity has become a religion. There is not a fair look into past warming and cooling cycles. Would you form a firm opinion of animal intelligence by examining one rat or one dog for ten minutes? Secondly: On a particular Sunday morning (when Bush & Cheney were running) a wise and learned commentator mentioned that Cheney was adding "gravitas" to the ticket. This followed by nearly every news commentator repeating the comment as though it were his own throughout the day. Not only do we get duped by the media, they also coordinated their stories.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this:
""it's difficult to make sense of the charge that the article is "biased.""
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo sir, when every single example one uses is from a conservative the bias is clearly evident.
I could find plenty of left wing examples to be used."
*****************
You're wrong.
When the examples being used are intended to be examples of fallacious *inference*, the *content* of the premises and conclusion is irrelevant. To repeat: the fallacious nature of an inference does not speak to the truth of the conclusion. So, again to repeat, to use an example from a conservative (whatever that is) is NOT to oppose his conclusion. In fact, one might think that it's *good* for conservatives to pick out the fallacious nature of certain conservative arguments-- if you endorse the proposed conclusion, you probably think that it can be supported non-fallaciously. To allow the fallacious argument to stand is to allow the conclusion to be presented in a bad light.
Ahh, yes...I remember when Scientific American was about SCIENCE. It was SCIENTIFIC American not as it is now...scientific American. Although this article makes some good points, it does not belong in this mag. Please reserve Scientic American for scientic writings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisApparently, there are those who believe that science has nothing to do with inference, and that consequently, an essay about a common but heretofore unidentified form of *fallacious* inference does not belong in a magazine about science! Amazing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about all the mis-information the New York Times spreads? If your'e going to talk about getting duped don't dupe us & go ahead & give examples on both sides of the isle.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDuped by SciAm: information inferred from data, data inferred from non-random, selective anecdote.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Duped by SciAm: information inferred from data, data inferred from non-random, selective anecdote."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNonsense. The article attempts to identify a *fallacy*, it makes no claims about the truth of the conclusions promoted by those who commit it. To say that the analysis of the fallacy is undermined because the choice of examples is "non-random" is silly.
"What about all the mis-information the New York Times spreads? If your'e going to talk about getting duped don't dupe us & go ahead & give examples on both sides of the isle."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're making a mistake. The article is *not* about misinformation, but rather fallacious inference. An inference can be fallacious even though all the premises and the conclusion are true. An inference is fallacious insofar as the truth of the premises fails to demonstrate the truth of the conclusion. That you see this piece as being about sides of an aisle suggests you've not understood it.
This article is a good example of Keith's law: Authoritativeness is inversely proportional to partisanship. Sci Am should stick to reporting on science rather than teaching logic and using a biased sample to "prove" the point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"This article is a good example of Keith's law: Authoritativeness is inversely proportional to partisanship. Sci Am should stick to reporting on science rather than teaching logic and using a biased sample to "prove" the point."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother instantiation of the same mistake. Since the point of the article is to identify a heretofore unidentified fallacy, the examples are not introduced as a way of *proving* anything. The examples *instantiate* the fallacy. And since it's a *fallacy* that's being exemplified in the examples, the article implies *no* judgment regarding the positions advanced by means of the Weak Man fallacy. So the examples cannot be "biased" in the way you suggest.
The responses here suggest that maybe some SciAm readers could use a lesson in logic.
This article raises a question to me: are there any common linguistic cues that can flag an argument as a straw man/weak man?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor example, the "some people say" construction is very often associated with straw men, but there are many minor variants: "liberals argue", "conservatives think", etc. In general, I might hypothesize that speech which involves constructing a class of unnamed entities as opponents would be more likely to contain a straw man. (Of course, your Clinton example involves a named entity as an opponent, thus demonstrating that the construction is not universal and semantic analysis is hard.)
The weak man sometimes appears to be constructed in the opposite way. If straw men often attribute views to an unnamed class and imply that those views are shared by a specific entity, then weak men often attribute views from a specific entity to a broader unnamed class. There may be some commonality in the ways that attribution occurs in the language.
If I had time (or grad students), I'd try putting together a large collection of brief arguments, tagging them as valid/straw/weak, and looking for lexical and syntactic commonalities.
That'd be fun.
[i](You know, there's been a lot of work done on named entity recognition. I wonder if anybody has ever looked at unnamed entity recognition?)[/i]
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Edited by jwbates at 02/24/2008 11:36 AM
Thanks great article as Carl Sagan pointed out in his book "The Demon Haunted World: Science as a candle in the dark" having a Baloney Detection Kit ( http://www.xenu.net/archive/baloney_detection.html ) is key to developing a sufficiently skeptical scientific mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would also like to recommend for those who are interested in this topic the following:
Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning by David Zarefsky (Audio CD)
http://www.amazon.com/Argumentation-Effective-Reasoning-Zarefsky-Teaching/dp/0251405826
.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--
Edited by Pavel Nadin at 02/25/2008 11:45 PM
Regarding the "Popular Delusions" insert box that the printed version of this article has. I find it quite ironic that the professors who teach us about fallacies "prove" Fox News to be biased relying on just as biased and non sequitur argumentation. First, the poll is based on conservative myths only - selection bias. Of course the group who watch Fox News will score higher in believing one of the conservative myths. I'd be more interested in numbers if the myths in survey were more like "The Bush administration masterminded the 9/11 attacks". Secondly, the authors *presume* the causal link between watching the news and a belief, which is question begging. Just because there is a correlation between watching Fox News and a false belief, it doesn't follow that former causes the latter. I might believe in Hussein's involvement in 9/11 simply because I believe everything my mother tells me. I watch Fox News because I might like the anchor. There is thus no causal link between the news and my belief.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPavel Nadin:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're mistaken. You must not have read the insert box very carefully. The authors refer the reader to the PIPA study referenced in the main article while summarizing the results of that study. No claim is made that roughly 200 words in the insert box constitute *proof* of anything. For that, refer to the study, which of course corrects for the *post hoc, propter hoc fallacy you attribute to it (apparently without bothering to have read it). Furthermore, when you read the insert box more carefully, youll find that the authors resolutely back away from asserting anything like the conclusion your attribute to them; rather, they explicitly call for further research.
Hi Talisse,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo me, you're splitting hairs. Sure, the authors don't claim to prove anything in an analytic or deductive sense, but they do say "We believe this shows that Fox News is relatively biased, creating false impressions about facts, and that PBS-NPR is less so..." My point is that "this", as sited in the box, is a set of carefully chosen myths and a presumption of causality. This is a poor justification of a belief. If the authors really believed in "further research is needed", a more balanced and scientific minded statement would be "we find the correlation between Fox News and false beliefs interesting, but further research is needed to establish any causal relationships". Instead, it sounds like the conclusion has already been drawn, which is also indicated in the main article by the statement: "It is also wise to obtain news from more balanced news sources [see box above]". I'm sorry, but to me, this is a case of either sloppy writing or flawed epistemic criteria. If this is how the authors justify their beliefs, I find it difficult to find much interest in anything else they have to say on the subject.
By the way, if you want to start splitting hairs, you should note that I didn't accuse anybody of post hoc (this was an inference and therefore a strawman on your part). I questioned the whole causal link regardless of the events’ chronological order. If anything, I accuse the authors of cum hoc (ergo propter hoc). And I would actually argue that the correlation between Fox News and myths can be explained by a *common* cause, such as a set of certain conservative beliefs.
Pavel.
Pavel (if I may),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "this" is the study that's is being discussed, which, should you bother to read it, of course avoids the propter hoc (or, if you prefer, false cause fallacy) you're worried about. I also do not buy your claim that the false beliefs tested for are "conservative myths"-- does this mean that they're myths conservatives tend to believe, or are they myths conservatives tend to promote? As for the "sloppy writing" or "flawed epistemic criteria"-- this is clearly a false dilemma. As one of the authors of this piece, I know first hand that writing for a popular magazine places certain constraints on how technical one's language can be. More importantly, the piece does not aim to justify beliefs concerning what sources are biased, but rather is aimed at identifying a new kind of fallacy (Weak Man). If you're reading the piece in order to evaluate the epistemic practices of the authors, you're misreading it.
Hi Robert (if I may),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour point is well taken. I didn't read the research paper and I trust what you're saying about it. I also understand the constraints when writing a pop science article. As a matter of feedback though, I think it might be worth your while to take a note that that if you're concerned with the impression you give to readers like me, you should be more careful about how you frame statements that carry political overtone. I've never been a Republican (and likely will never be), but, in general, I find it distasteful when I see scientifically oriented articles colored by the authors' liberal political viewpoints, which belong in blogs, if you ask me. Just out of curiosity, would I be correct in my prediction if I said you were not a Republican?
Now, although the notion of a "myth" is a contentious one when it comes to politics, and this might not be the best place to discuss it, I'm a little surprised that you don't buy my selection bias objection. Let me ask you, why not poll the news watchers about the following myths as well?
a) President Bush stole the election in Florida
b) Bush forces Americans to die in Iraq so Halliburton can make a buck
c) Bush hates the environment and his policies are devastating to Earth
d) The Bush administration masterminded the 9/11 attacks
Do you honestly believe that if your survey had these myths instead of the ones that you cite in the box, you would roughly come up with the same numbers? My intuition has often been wrong before, but I'm willing to make a wager here that the numbers would be quite different, which would suggest a different source of a more balanced news source (assuming the causal link of course).
Pavel.
Pavel,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou claim the article is colored by the authors liberal political viewpoints and then ask whether I am not a Republican. The implication is that whoever is not a Republican is therefore a liberal. This is clearly false. My co-authors political commitments differ considerably from my own. I am not a Republican and not a liberal.
The selection bias worry doesnt fly since the PIPA study shows not only that FOX viewers are more likely to have false beliefs about, say, the country of origin of the 9/11 attackers, than PBS viewers, but *also* that the FOX viewers are more likely to believe falsely than those who get their news from *radio*, and even more likely to believe falsely than those who get their news from newspapers. The study speaks to the news *medium*: FOX viewers tend to believe false things that readers of conservative newspapers do not.
(more in another Comment)
Pavel,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMoreover: the PIPA study tests for belief in *demonstrably* false claims. Note that your alternate examples all contain *normative* terms disguised as descriptive ones ( stole, forces, etc.). Its difficult to know what it would mean to assert or deny any of your a-d, because the propositions are not especially well-formed. That is, it seems to me that a statement like Bush forces Americans to die in Iraq so Halliburton can make a buck actually asserts *several* things.
Hi Robert,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Regarding viewpoints. You’re beating on another strawman – accusing me of pulling a non sequitur from a false implication (and a premise). Thanks! But I never said you were a non-Republican because you were a liberal and if one is a liberal, then he must be a non-Republican. First, I said “in general, I find…â€. Attributing yourself to this generalization was of your own accord. I thought I made it clear that I gave you a benefit of the doubt since I hadn’t read the report and I understand the constraints of writing in a magazine. Secondly, the implication I had in mind was more of “Republican --> No bad Bush examples / conservative media criticism / certain writing style†This technically didn’t have anything to do with the previous point and was intended to test a related hypothesis I had in mind. By denying the consequent, I was predicting "not Republican". You put the two together.
2. I don’t understand how “PIPA study shows not only…†answers the bias objection. To me, your point sounds like begging the question. As I’m sure you know, you can’t use the conclusion to justify the premise. That is, before I believe what the PIPA study shows, I need to believe its methods of justification, and that’s where I claim the selection bias comes in. Again, I confess, I haven’t read the report and go strictly by what I saw in the insert box. Maybe the selected myths and other criteria are well balanced in the report, but that’s not the impression I get from the insert, which is the point at hand.
3. Regarding normative terms. This is a valid point, which is why I said “the notion of a myth is a contentious oneâ€. I decided to go down that road because I wasn’t sure how you yourself were going to “demonstrably†falsify that “Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks†or that over 3 billion people were opposed to the decision to go to war with Iraq. Although you can find me guilty of ‘Tu Quoque’, I prefer to view it as ‘what’s good for the goose is good for the gander’. If you can spell out the ambiguity of the term “involvementâ€, I’m sure I can work something out with “stoleâ€, such as “illegally stopped the recountâ€. By the way, what is your source on how many people in the world were opposing going to war. Who was doing the polling?
Pavel.
Pavel,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know how to allow the comments box to permit more than 1000 characters, so I'll respond in three separate comments (one for each of your three points).
1. Let's play fair. You said: "I find it distasteful when I see scientifically oriented articles colored by the authors' liberal political viewpoints [....] Just out of curiosity, would I be correct in my prediction if I said you were not a Republican?" Even given the "in general" qualification, any natural reading of this commits you-- by implicature-- both to the claim that the authors endorse "liberal viewpoints" and to the 'liberal or Republican' disjunction. You can't sneak in a *tacit* modus tollens and then charge me with strawmanning: one shouldn't have to be a mind reader in order to avoid fallacious inference.
Pavel,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2. The PIPA study shows that conservatives who watch conservative TV as their main source of news are more likely to believe demonstrably false statements than conservatives who get their news primarily from radio or print. The view you endorse claims that, since *conservatives* as such are more likely to believe the false statements tested for, the fact that conservatives who watch FOX tend to believe them warrants no conclusion about FOX. But your view can't explain why conservatives who read newspapers as their main source of news tend *not* to believe the "conservative myths."
Moreover, the study shows that those who watch non-conservative TV news are *also* more likely to believe these demonstrably false things than those who listen to radio or read newspapers. Again, the selection bias objection is misplaced.
Pavel,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this3. You say, "If you can spell out the ambiguity of the term "involvement", Im sure I can work something out with "stole", such as "illegally stopped the recount". One can always trade on vagueness. The point is that all of your alternate exampled embed a negative moral judgment about Bush, whereas the PIPA statements attempt to avoid this. Even in the case of "involvement," to say that SH was "personally involved" in the attacks is not *yet* to condemn him; by contrast, to say that GWB "stole" the election is to condemn the act. Moreover, as I said above, it's a problem that each of your alternate statements (d is a possible exception) makes *several* assertions.
To read this and think that you're not being duped into believing the authors view on the Iraq war is just comical. The media controls the language and frequency of the message. It is no wonder that this article contains multiple references to conservative dupes and only a singular reference to a liberal dupe. This is a prime example of the authors (published by the media) trying to show balance, yet still maintain the language and frequency of their message against support of the war, while "trying" to sound scientific. Wait, I think I've just been duped!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi Robert,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Fair enough. I can see how “natural reading†would make you draw such an inference. Point taken, moving on.
2. You’re going back to the cum hoc accusation, which has nothing to do with the selection bias charge. I no longer hold the former, as you assured me that the study properly accounts for it. What’s at stake here is the latter – your choice of “demonstrably false statementsâ€. Before you tell me what the PIPA study shows, you need to tell me its methods of justification of what it shows. My point has been that, judging from the insert box, the choice of “demonstrably false statements†looks biased and non-random (addressed more in #3), which renders the conclusions of the study highly questionable. Perhaps a few more examples of these “false statements†would help.
3. Even if we neglect the vagueness of the terms and focus strictly on their normative connotation, I would still maintain that my paraphrase of “stole†as “illegally stopped the recount†is a fair game. First, I don’t buy that “SH was involved in 9/11†is a purely descriptive statement. The whole reason why it’s even asked, as opposed to “SH was 6 feet tallâ€, is because to be involved in 9/11 is a bad thing, which can warrant and justify a military action. It certainly has a normative overtone if you ask me. But if you consider that a descriptive statement, how then is “Bush illegally stopped the recount in Florida†NOT a descriptive one? Is the word “illegally†too normative for you? How about “unlawfullyâ€? Or maybe simply “not according to a statutory recordâ€? But if you like the word “involvedâ€, then you need to address the “the Bush administration masterminded the 9/11 attack†statement. I can simply replace “masterminded†with “involved†and still retain the myth. This is really playing a word game, which is part of politics I guess. I think if we’re going to stop playing such games and be more charitable in interpretation, iit should become clear that the “demonstrably false statements†are one sided. That’s my opinion.
By the way, you can post more that 1k words by logging in and clicking on the "Reply to this topic" button. It'll bring up a nice editor. :-)
Pavel.
There has been evidence of a hidden agenda behind many of the conflictive situations occurring between countries , independent from the fact of how the evidence can be misinterpreted by the media
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisreceiving such input. Let us not ignore the fact that though these deductive anomalies actually occur, they can also be utilized by the elite as a disinformation mechanism.
> Then again, there were millions of Americans, and the vast majority of observers worldwide who did not fall for the charade at all, and were able to figure out the fallacy in the arguments presented for war in spite of the blizzard of fear and misinformation being put forth. (Quoted as an example. The article itself is backhanded kind of anti-Iraq war piece.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid they really? Many people do claim they did not fall for it on Iraq. But who among them did not fall for the Kosovo war lies when Bill Clinton was Salesman in Chief? The Kosovo war was sold on the claim of "[i]genocide in progress![/i]" And yet, Osama bin Laden's lieutenant was commanding the KLA that we in the USA backed. The KLA had ethnically cleansed parts of Kosovo of Serbs in the years prior to that war. And - there was no evidence. Period. In the Hague trial of Milosevic, this was proven beyond a shadow of doubt. No genocide. No evidence for it. Satellite photos that were as empty of content as the Niger uranium forgery.
The reality is, deceptions or not, people do not make decisions for or against war because they evaluate information. People support or oppose a war because they like or dislike the salesman, and because they like or dislike the idea of war.
Anyone here that claims to have seen through the deceptions about Iraq who did not see through the deceptions about Kosovo is almost certainly lying - lying to themselves. We like or disliked the salesman.
--
Edited by John_Toradze at 03/01/2008 5:20 PM
--
Edited by John_Toradze at 03/01/2008 5:21 PM
Ha! That ought to show all those conservatives. Now there is scientific proof that we are right and they are all stupid dum-dum heads and scientists can prove it with science so we are smarter. So Ha Ha Ha on them!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you want weakly formulated arguments, then explore the films of Michael Moore.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe got most people thinking that the WTC fell because of modified planes from the CIA.
I hardly saw any major media challenges to the 2 hour presentation of lies in his film.
Or take Sicko. He completely ignored medical research. Cuba (and Europe) are able to provide cheap care in part because they don't fund cutting edge medical research -- they just read it and steal it from the US.
Or Columbine. He never created an answer as to why these shootings occurred in the US, but all his data showed, in comparing Canada, that it had nothing to do with gun ownership -- yet that is the sentiment that most people took away from the film.
John A. Bailo:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe piece is *not* about "weakly formulated arguments," but *fallacious* arguments.
Pavel,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry for the delay in replying-- I only just now noticed your latest post. Thanks for the tip re posting more than 1000 words.
I take up your points in order.
1. Fair enough. Moving on.
2. Since the PIPA study is a piece of serious social science, its methodology is sophisticated and cannot be summarized here. Again, you should read it-- the methodology is fully explained there. Your charge that the statements are "biased" and "non random" is confusing. How is the statement "The US has found WMD in Iraq" biased? Do you mean that conservatives are more likely to believe it (independent of what their media source is)? What's your evidence for this? How would you explain the study's finding that belief in this statement varies according to media source (TV viewers of any political stripe are more likely to believe it than newspaper readers)?
3. Again, to say "Bush illegally stopped the recount" is to *condemn* the act. "The US found WMD in Iraq" is not in itself a judgment about anything-- it's simply to state a fact. Of course, one who believes that the US found WMD in Iraq will use that statement as a premise in further inferences about thing like the justification of the war, the brutality of SH's regime, etc. But, importantly, one could believe that WMD were found, but still oppose the war. It's more difficult to see how someone could accept the claim that Bush illegally stopped the recount and yet *not* condemn him. So whereas you're right to point out that the descriptive / prescriptive distinction is murky, and that many terms serve double-duty, my point is that seemingly descriptive statements that use terms like "illegally" or "unlawfully" embed a condemnation of the act being described. Statements like "The US has found WMD in Iraq " do not themselves condemn anything (although they of course may serve as premises in arguments supporting the war).
As for the claim that the statements tested in the PIPA study are "one sided," note that the study is a study of popular opinion regarding the Iraq war. So of course the researchers will be looking at statements concerning that war.
by9gt89
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that the topic of false media is very real, and unfortunately, not everyone realizes that it is not true. As a result, fallacious news presented as fact is highly damaging.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is news-worthy news? Consider the source of course... but why a political "debate" as an example on a scientific web-site? There are many examples of "fudged" data for the sake of making a buck. Look at big pharma and how many drugs get taken off of the market. That's $$$ chemistry in action.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi Robert,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. You seem to misunderstand what I mean by “non-random†and “biasedâ€. I’m not a research scientist, but common sense tells me that in order to suggest “that Fox News is relatively biased, creating false impressions about facts, and that PBS-NPR is less so…â€, you would need to poll the viewers with a set of [i]randomly[/i] picked “demonstrably false statementsâ€, not just limiting the set, as you yourself mention, to the war in Iraq. Doing the latter is a textbook example of selection bias. Now, if you want to say that Fox News creates false impressions about [i]the war in Iraq[/i], that would be a different story. But you’re stating simply “facts†in general. This is not nitpicking; you appear to be (yourself) creating a false impression about the news source by making a hasty generalization, which is why I charged you earlier with a non sequitur.
2. It’s my turn to ask you to play fair. The (more interesting) myth under consideration was “SH was involved in 9/11â€, not “WMDs were foundâ€. Don’t pull a weak man argument on me now :-). I’m honestly baffled by how you make a distinction between what is a condemning (prescriptive) and what is not (descriptive) proposition. As a non-native speaker of English, I might not see some connotations in words, so please help me clarify your choice by considering these 3 myths (my wording as used earlier):
a) Bush unlawfully stopped the recount in Florida
b) Saddam H was involved in the 9/11 attacks
c) CIA was involved in the 9/11 attacks
If I understand your reasoning correctly, a) and c) are condemning, but b) is not. Is that correct? If so, is there some standard criterion you’re employing to make this distinction, or is this your intuitive judgment? If the former, I’d like to see a reference. If the latter, I’m willing to bet a large number of people will have different intuitive judgments viz. this distinction. As I said earlier, it seems to me that polling the news watchers with the myths I mention above would be a more balanced approach and therefore produce different results. I remain unconvinced that, even though I don’t have numbers to back it up, my claim is nevertheless tenuous.
BTW, I still would like to see how “most people in the world at large were opposed to the decision to go to war with Iraq†is demonstrably true statement. I do trust inferential statistics (as epistemic criteria), but I’d be interested in learning who did the polling and who was polled. Thanks.
Pavel.
I enjoyed this article. So what if it's about politicians? Obviously it's one of the better examples to use, especially when we see how this conservative administration manipulated many people into a war which they now want to get out of. The last I read, the majority of our citizens believe it was a big mistake.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo we made a 1.5 trillion dollar mistake. That's only about three quarter of a million dollars per household in the USA.
Who needed the money anyway? Oh! We did? You mean because we had over 2 million foreclosures in 2007. But what does that matter. We got to go and tell some people on the other side of the world how they should live. It was worth the money. I sure hope they remember to do things the way we told them after our troops leave. Otherwise this might end up being ummm kind of ummm.
But gas will get cheaper since our Oil families here are grabbing oil over there right? What? Diesel just hit $4 a gallon in Crescent City California? Ummm.
This strange article will undoubtably be in the runniing o be somebody's "weak man" example of the future...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSJONAS: You're mistaken. The article is trying to identify a fallacy. It is not trying to comment on the truth of falsity of the positions that people try to support by means of the fallacy. Fallacious arguments can have true conclusions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1130-07.htm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is going on in the US as well. the news is for entertainment only !!
Human beings learn by copying: if a fallacy appears on the news it will be copied, copied, copied. The same misinformation appears instantly on every channel, every blog. Human beings are rarely concerned with facts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGetting Duped
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisre: Talisse comment
""Duped by SciAm: information inferred from data, data inferred from non-random, selective anecdote."
"Nonsense. The article attempts to identify a *fallacy*, it makes no claims about the truth of the conclusions promoted by those who commit it. To say that the analysis of the fallacy is undermined because the choice of examples is "non-random" is silly.""
The term "information" refers to generic inference from data - truth, fallacy, whatever. Also, I was unable to find the word "silly" in "Theory of Knowledge" by Bertrand Russell. Is it a physical science term or a political science term?
Sidebar:
Does Sciam believe that the political sciences and social sciences are actually sciences simply based on the political and social communities' self-referential claim to "science"?
DarthRock:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi! The reason you're unable to find the word "silly" in Russell's (interesting, but incorrect, as he himself saw, which is why he never published it) epistemology book is because Russell was not in that book responding to someone advancing the silly claim that in order to provide examples of a fallacy, one must proceed from "random" data.
The reason why this claim is silly is that it conflates proof and exemplification. This is a silly mistake, in the ordinary sense of the word "silly." The point of the article is to provide examples of a heretofore unidentified fallacy, not to provide proof that some particular person or persons are especially prone to committing it.
Talisse:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOkay, I'll drop "non-random" and just state that Sciam is "dry-labbing".
(Also, I was unable to find "silly" in "The Orange Catholic Bible" either; but I'll keep looking.)
DarthRock:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe charge of "dry labbing" makes the same error. Since the article is not offering proof that certain people are especially prone to a newly-identified fallacy, but instead offering examples of the fallacy, there's no laboratory necessary.
So you're pretty well convinced that the "examples of the fallacy" are not editorial content?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOkay, I never challenge another soul's "belief system" because other people have threatened to pray for me and have caustically criticized my disbelief in Darwinism and my belief in "Unintelligent Design", which includes the notion that humans are evolving into super-hardened hockey pucks able to withstand the harsh conditions of both Mercury and Pluto.
DarthRock:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes-- I am convinced of this. I wrote the article and know how the examples were chosen.
Talisse:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisqed
I've noticed Richard Perle of the American Enterprise Institute often uses this technique. It's easy to catch Sophism if you already know a person's agenda.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn almost daily example of how the media messes with our minds is how they present the news regarding Israel: only AFTER Israel has defended itself against a prior "Palestinian" attack does the piece of news get printed or aired, usually at the end of the article, which HIGHLIGHTS the ISRAELI ATTACK. Thus, it always gives the MISTAKEN impression that Israel is always attacking the "poor" so-called "Palestinians", who are not that, but, simply Arabs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile I agree with the principle of this article, If I am correct, the first example is in error. President Bush's "people" remark was pointedly directed at Rep John Murtha who, on November 17th, said according to the Wikipedia entry on John Murtha "The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them home.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAfter President Bush gave his speech, John Murtha "clarified" his opinion to mean redeployment within Iraq.
Murtha was and still is a stallwart opponent of President Bush, I think you would agree.
If I am in error, my apologies, however, that is how I remember it going down
Sorry to go off topic here; but is anybody else utterly appalled by the phrase "media consumers", or is it just me?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this