(click to enlarge)

I found this comic (on PHDComics.com) the other day and just had to post it because it really hits the nail on the head.  While this process is easiest to identify in science news, where original sources are relatively easily available, I think this fear amplification and exaggeration process applies to most things you see reported in the news.  Drill down to original sources and actual data, and everything is always far more nuanced, moderate, and sensible than the story that’s delivered to media consumers.  Of course these days many people don’t even read the news, they get their information through the filter of opinion commentators, radio pundits, or cult-like internet personalities.  So perhaps the cartoonist could have made the cycle more complete by adding an additional step before the paranoid granny where radio/tv/internet pundits tell you that the government/big business/unions are secretly trying to slip “A” into legislation/biased media/your water supply.

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One of my absolute favorite political sites on the internet, Politifact.com, recently won a pulitzer prize!  They were apparently the first exclusively online news organization to do so.  And they really, really deserve it.  They do top-notch fact-checking of most of the controversial statements being thrown around by public officials.  They’re also running an “Obameter” where they keep track of over 500 of Obama’s campaign promises and record which ones are kept and which are broken, with comprehensive explanations for each.

Every time I start to get depressed about the sorry state of investigative journalism, the decline of objective reporting and rise of partisan pontificating, or the way our news media has devolved into a megaphone for the most apocalyptic, opinionated, and insane of our politicians and pundits, I surf on over to politifact.com and bask in their worship of sweet, sweet facts, and it gives me hope.  Seriously, if you have even a passing interest in politics, you should probably bookmark politifact and check it a couple times a week.  They only update every once in a while.  If they expanded into a full news agency I’d probably make them my number one source of political information.  Another fantastic, and equally objective, site is Factcheck.Org.  I know I’ve promoted them both before but seriously, check them out:

www.PolitiFact.com

www.FactCheck.org

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I doubt I will ever write many articles that fit better into the theme and mission of this blog than this one.  And despite the fact that the piece it’s based on is over 3 years old, it couldn’t be more topical.  There was an article in the New Yorker in December of 2005 entitled “Everybody’s An Expert” that discusses a book by UC Berkeley Psychology Professor Philip Tetlock called “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?”.  The article is a fascinating read and I’d encourage you to go through it if you’ve got a few minutes.  But it is long so I’ve tried to draw out the more important and politically relevant points and I’ve added them below, along with a little of my own commentary.

The article (and the book) revolve around the information provided by the following study, performed by Tetlock over a 20-year period:

“He picked two hundred and eighty-four people who made their living “commenting or offering advice on political and economic trends,” and he started asking them to assess the probability that various things would or would not come to pass, both in the areas of the world in which they specialized and in areas about which they were not expert. Would there be a nonviolent end to apartheid in South Africa? Would Gorbachev be ousted in a coup? Would the United States go to war in the Persian Gulf? Would Canada disintegrate? (Many experts believed that it would, on the ground that Quebec would succeed in seceding.) And so on. By the end of the study, in 2003, the experts had made 82,361 forecasts…

“Tetlock got a statistical handle on his task by putting most of the forecasting questions into a “three possible futures” form. The respondents were asked to rate the probability of three alternative outcomes: the persistence of the status quo, more of something (political freedom, economic growth), or less of something (repression, recession). And he measured his experts on two dimensions: how good they were at guessing probabilities (did all the things they said had an xper cent chance of happening happen x per cent of the time?), and how accurate they were at predicting specific outcomes. The results were unimpressive. On the first scale, the experts performed worse than they would have if they had simply assigned an equal probability to all three outcomes—if they had given each possible future a thirty-three-per-cent chance of occurring. Human beings who spend their lives studying the state of the world, in other words, are poorer forecasters than dart-throwing monkeys, who would have distributed their picks evenly over the three choices.” (emphasis added)

So with so many political pundits throwing out predictions on a daily basis, somebody finally decided to check their accuracy.  And surprise, surprise, they’re extremely bad overall.  But they also collected a large amount of data about the personalities and perspectives of the their test subjects and they found that some pundits were much more accurate than others, and I think the associations they discovered are incredibly interesting:

“Tetlock uses Isaiah Berlin’s metaphor from Archilochus, from his essay on Tolstoy, “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” to illustrate the difference. He says:

‘Low scorers look like hedgehogs: thinkers who “know one big thing,” aggressively extend the explanatory reach of that one big thing into new domains, display bristly impatience with those who “do not get it,” and express considerable confidence that they are already pretty proficient forecasters, at least in the long term. High scorers look like foxes: thinkers who know many small things (tricks of their trade), are skeptical of grand schemes, see explanation and prediction not as deductive exercises but rather as exercises in flexible “ad hocery” that require stitching together diverse sources of information, and are rather diffident about their own forecasting prowess.’

“Tetlock did not find, in his sample, any significant correlation between how experts think and what their politics are. His hedgehogs were liberal as well as conservative, and the same with his foxes. (Hedgehogs were, of course, more likely to be extreme politically, whether rightist or leftist.) He also did not find that his foxes scored higher because they were more cautious—that their appreciation of complexity made them less likely to offer firm predictions. Unlike hedgehogs, who actually performed worse in areas in which they specialized, foxes enjoyed a modest benefit from expertise. Hedgehogs routinely over-predicted: twenty per cent of the outcomes that hedgehogs claimed were impossible or nearly impossible came to pass, versus ten per cent for the foxes. More than thirty per cent of the outcomes that hedgehogs thought were sure or near-sure did not, against twenty per cent for foxes.”   emphasis added

So the lowest scorers are those who are confident that they understand the world and can predict its future, they are the type who express anger at those who “do not get it”, they tend to be on one of the farther ends of the political spectrum, they have particular themes that they focus on and which they tend to see everywhere, they form “grand schemes” and conspiracies, and they tend to make extreme and probably startling predictions about the future.  Does this sound familiar?  These are the Rush Limbaughs and the Michael Moores of the world.  The Glenn Becks and the Bill Mahers.  In fact nearly all of our most popular pundits would probably qualify as hedgehogs and in fact that’s exactly what Tetlock’s study found:

“And the more famous the forecaster the more overblown the forecasts. ‘Experts in demand,’ Tetlock says, ‘were more overconfident than their colleagues who eked out existences far from the limelight.’…  ’Our system of expertise is completely inside out: it rewards bad judgments over good ones.’”

This probably shouldn’t be too surprising.  I mean can you imagine listening to a “fox” on talk radio?  There would be no angry rants and no apocalyptic predictions about the future.  There would probably be very few claims that their perspective was being silenced or persecuted, and there would be no group to demonize or blame the country’s problems on.  Rather than fitting the events in the world together into a cohesive conspiracy theory and sounding the warning they would be deconstructing the world’s problems and pointing out areas where we still need more information.  When asked to predict something they’d often be able to give their thoughts but they’d frequently have to say, “I don’t know exactly, its an extremely complex situation.  It could go this way, but who knows for sure?”

In other words it would be boring.  The fact is, we like to listen to people who seem like they have got it all figured out.  We are drawn to charismatic TV commentators who can point out the enemy and give us a target for our frustration and confusion.  We enjoy reading books and editorials from people who can fit all the pieces together and make it all seem so simple.  The problem, of course, is that the world is not actually simple at all, current events are the result of millions of actors each with a multitude of motivations, we don’t have half of the puzzle pieces let alone the ability to fit them together, and in the end these people are literally wrong more often than dart-throwing monkeys.

I guess the lesson is, and this seems to be a common refrain on this blog, to be wary of those who seem to think they’ve got the world figured out.  Be careful of those who are confident, popular, or heavily partisan.  I suppose we could say we should try to get our information from “foxes” but perhaps the best course of action is to strive to become one ourselves.  And that’s the conclusion that the article seems to come to as well.  Though Tetlock kind of downplays some of the implications of his study (he is a pundit himself after all) the author finishes off with this observation, which I’ll allow to end this post:

“But the best lesson of Tetlock’s book may be the one that he seems most reluctant to draw: Think for yourself.”

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The internet was full of jokes today in celebration of April 1st.  I thought one of the best was Yahoo’s new “Ideological search”, both because of its astute social commentary and its near-believability.  Their info page on the subject has this to say:

Tired of being inundated with the contradictory and offensive beliefs of others? Today, the scientists at Yahoo! are releasing a groundbreaking new search filter that keeps controversy out of your search experience. I’m extremely pleased to announce the immediate availability of Ideological Search, which allows you to control the ideology of your search results.

Our research found that web searchers are regularly affronted by articles, blogs, facts, and pages that contain perspectives directly contradicting their own personal beliefs and values –- whether political, religious, economic, scientific, philosophical, etc. If consumers have the freedom in whether they navigate to the HuffingtonPost.com or FOXNews.com, why not extend that same choice to search? Until today, no other search engine could provide this level of personalization –- ensuring that consumers can search with the utmost confidence, knowing that they won’t be antagonized by their results.

Its a sad fact that the news in our country is becoming increasingly politicized.  With both sides accusing the main stream media of liberal or conservative bias, people are now increasingly turning to blatantly partisan news sources.  Local newspapers and organizations like CNN are dying while FoxNews and MSNBC are thriving on the backs of their outspoken, partisan pundits.

Its just easier to bask in the warmth of your own viewpoint than to allow it to be challenged.  I’ve heard several people tell me recently that they don’t discuss politics because it just never goes well.  I say that’s because we’re out of practice.  We’ve lost the art of rational debate.  And the longer we sit in our own ideological corners the more difficult it will be to understand the other side.

Anyway, kudos to Yahoo for skewering this insidious tendency that’s dividing America.  And if you want to try it their ideological search actually works and can be found here.  I wonder how long it will be before a product like this is actually released?

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I’m finally catching up on articles I’ve been meaning to write for a long time and this one comes from a New York Times Op-Ed piece which was written last June but which I discovered more recently.  It can be found here. It describes a phenomenon known as “source amnesia”, which serves as yet another example of how none of us are nearly as smart, objective, or discerning as we think we are.

Most basically, source amnesia is just the idea that its much easier to remember a particular nugget of information, than it is to remember the context or source of that information, especially if its information we use, think about, or hear often.  For example where did you first learn that the gas pedal was on the right and the brake on the left?  Or where did you first hear that smoking causes lung cancer?  You’ve probably heard it plenty of times from lots of reputable sources but can you name one of those sources with surety?  Unless you’ve read something in the last few days your mind has probably long stripped away any memory of where you got that information or the context you heard it in, and now just stores it in the part of the brain where it stores “facts”.

The interesting thing is that your brain, in transfering this memory to its “fact bin” often strips out very important context, including whether or not that particular item is true or false, or whether it comes from a reliable or unreliable source.  I’ve long-since learned that its very difficult to memorize negative associations like “T-cells are NOT part of the innate immune system” because when test time comes, more often than not I’m only able to remember that T-cells and the innate immune system were somehow related in my studying and I’m not able to tell whether or not T-cells were or were not part of this system, which is usually the fact I actually need to know.  So I’ve stuck to memorizing only positive associations “T-cells ARE part of the adaptive immune system” because then when I remember there’s an association I can be confident its a positive one.

Well political pundits and partisan news organizations are aware of this little brain snafu and take advantage of it on a regular basis.  News headlines are particularly problematic.  Because of source amnesia the following three headlines:

Obama is a Muslim

Obama is not a Muslim

Is Obama a Muslim?

…are pretty much all stored in our brains in the same exact way.  Just a sourceless association between Obama and Muslims.  And because the source and context of these little factoids are stripped away more severely the more often we hear an association the proportion of people who believe (in this example) that Barack Obama is a Muslim has less to do with the content of any of the articles discussing the matter and more to do with the volume of articles that mention his name and Muslims in close proximity to each-other.

The New Yorker ran a controversial cover at the beginning of last July featuring Barack Obama and his wife dressed as militant Muslims which was supposed to be satirical.  It sparked a new interest into the subject of Obama’s faith and several news agencies ran articles looking into the Muslim connection, each one, of course, finding the idea that Obama was a Muslim to be rubbish.  And yet over the course of that month the percent of Americans who believed he was a Muslim had actually risen to 12%! Up from 10% previously. As it turns out remembering that “Obama is NOT a muslim” is about as difficult as remembering that “T-cells are NOT part of the innate immune system.”  After a while all you have left is the association which only gets reinforced the more often its brought up.

The picture I started this article with is another good example.  Hillary Clinton’s camp released it during the primary knowing full well that it doesn’t matter whether this picture is run with an article supporting (where there even any of these?) or debunking the idea that Obama is a Muslim.  And it doesn’t matter whether it’s seen in the National Enquirer or the LA Times.  The source and context will be forgotten and all that will be remembered is the image of Obama in Muslim dress.  And the more often that picture is shown the more people will associate Obama and Muslims in their minds.

Those who listen to talk radio or frequently watch cable news editorial shows can probably easily identify those times when these pundits are consciously using this technique.  They tend to use certain phrases frequently, associating their enemies with all things bad.  Over time, if you are a frequent listener/viewer these associations are pounded so far into your head that they become firmly rooted in the “fact” area of your brain and you completely forget that the only place you’ve heard them is from an uneducated, partisan, clearly-biased entertainer.  In fact a study on source amnesia at Stanford which was cited in this NYT op-ed, found that the more often someone hears a statement, the more likely they are to attribute that statement to a reputable source:

In one study, a group of Stanford students was exposed repeatedly to an unsubstantiated claim taken from a Web site that Coca-Cola is an effective paint thinner. Students who read the statement five times were nearly one-third more likely than those who read it only twice to attribute it to Consumer Reports (rather than The National Enquirer, their other choice), giving it a gloss of credibility.

Thus to our brains repetition=credibility.  And when we’ve heard/read/thought about something enough, we often believe we got it from a credible source, even if we never did.  This is another one of those quick and dirty shortcuts our brains use that are correct more often than not.  I mean generally speaking, the more often you hear something, the more correct it is, especially if you hear it from multiple unrelated sources.  But obviously repetition from a source with little or no credibility, or repetition over and over from the same source doesn’t make a statement any more true.  And our brain really doesn’t take those things into account.

So what does that mean?  Political pundits who frequently use repetitive statements or slogans, or who spend an inordinate amount of time discussing false accusations against their political enemies are literally trying to brainwash you.  And news organizations who frequently use headlines consisting of a controversial statement in the form of a question (Is Barack Obama a communist?  Is John McCain too old to be President?) or who, once again, spend large amounts of time dwelling on false accusations before finally debunking them at the very end of the article are stoking your fear and anger, and in the end, misinforming you for all practical purposes.

I don’t think merely knowing about source amnesia allows you to prevent it in any way.  But knowing how its abused can help you identify those that are taking advantage of it, and avoid them.  Knowing about source amnesia can also encourage us to question those “facts” that we believe we know.  Which doesn’t mean we should just throw up our hands in frustration, but maybe it will help us approach our political discussions with a little more humility. Because even those things that we think are common knowledge, or which we vaguely remember learning from credible sources, may very well be false.

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Well I’m a little late to the game on this one but for those of you who missed it, here’s Obama’s speech to the joint session of congress delivered tuesday night.  It was a great speech, which I thought was surprisingly informative, with a fair amount of detail.  He struck a more hopeful tone than he has in the past, which is probably what we need, and what we are ready for.  I was surprised at how many of his statements brought the Republican legislators in the room to their feet.  Of course its in the bizarre format of all Presidential speeches to congress, where everyone claps after every other sentence.  If you don’t want to deal with all of that then you can just read the transcript here.   

One thing that struck me during this talk, but which I’d like to develop further in the future, is how similar all of our values are in America.  I think, as much as political pundits like to portray political differences as a war of values, in most cases we all have very similar basic values and goals, just different ideas about how to go about achieving those things.  Obama touched on values a lot in this speech and when he was talking about those things was there really much there for any of us to disagree with?  If there are some conservatives in the audience maybe they can let us know in the comments.

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