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Topic: Why are we so bad at this?
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Percy
Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 5.4
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Message 1 of 9 (914354)
01-10-2024 9:36 AM
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When I started EvC well over 20 years ago I had high hopes. I believed that moderated discussion would bring the light of understanding to benighted evolution skeptics. But that never happened. I bet that if we all got together we could come up with perhaps as many as 10 people we convinced in all that time. An article in this months American Scientist is titled How People Decide to Trust in Science. According to it, our efforts were doomed from the start. A significant focus of the article is trust in science, how people develop it, how many have it, how it depends upon context. Another important focus is the difference between science in general and regulatory science, such as during covid. It notes that combating distrust in regulatory science with more science education had a paradoxically opposite effect because such efforts were seen as patronizing. It also made political polarizations worse. So how to develop trust? The article discusses trust methods and discussed their study of long covid patients who participated in an online discussion group. This paragraph is instructive:
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We found that a specific sequence was common to those users whose posts were consistently upvoted. They did not begin their posting career by immediately citing scientific articles, however well supported, but by establishing a similarity of experience, which involved asking questions about the experiences of others and posting about one’s own illness experiences—at the correct moment, when it was relevant and resonant. Only in this way could they establish commonality. On the other hand, users who immediately tried to tell others what they’d learned from the literature were downvoted and disliked—nobody likes a know-it-all. Users whose anecdotal stories lacked attunement to the stories told by others were looked upon with suspicion, and their authenticity was questioned.
In other words, burying someone in facts right off the bat doesn't work. Adding scorn only makes it worse. You have to first build trust and then only gradually introduce facts and/or arguments. And they have to resonate else they'll be rejected. I don't see how building trust among evolution skeptics was ever possible here. Typically they appeared here already primed with misinformation that they could infinitely draw upon from the many anti-evolution websites. How do you go about building trust with someone whose initial post begins with (picking a topic at random), "Radiocarbon dating has been proved false. The world is only 5700 years old."? How do you respond in a way designed to build trust but that is honest, especially since their next response will probably contain blatantly and usually obviously false information from ICR that was carefully designed to be very convincing for those unfamiliar with science? Their answer is that beginning by establishing a similarity of experience is very important. I know some of us have such experience, but many are probably like me. Before high school my views were plastic and unformed, but sometime during high school only facts and logic began to matter to me as far as choosing what to accept as true. A friend used to frequently chastise me, "You're too logical." I believe the article is behind a paywall, but hopefully I've said enough to provide a feel for what it says.
Creation/Evolution Miscellany? --Percy
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 3 by nwr, posted 01-11-2024 9:36 PM | | Percy has not replied | | | Message 4 by Rahvin, posted 01-12-2024 12:25 AM | | Percy has not replied | | | Message 5 by GDR, posted 01-12-2024 7:34 PM | | Percy has not replied |
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AdminNosy
Administrator Posts: 4754 From: Vancouver, BC, Canada Joined: 11-11-2003
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Message 2 of 9 (914356)
01-11-2024 9:06 PM
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Thread Copied from Proposed New Topics Forum
Thread copied here from the Why are we so bad at this? thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.
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nwr
Member Posts: 6412 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: 08-08-2005 Member Rating: 5.3
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Message 3 of 9 (914357)
01-11-2024 9:36 PM
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Reply to: Message 1 by Percy
01-10-2024 9:36 AM
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Percy in Message 1 writes: In other words, burying someone in facts right off the bat doesn't work. That's because there are no such things as facts. Facts are cultural. And the culture of creationism is very different from the culture of science. Creationists have their own facts which are different from the facts of science. I did not read your linked article, because of the paywall. But it looks as if it is the same thing. The MAGA culture is very different from liberal culture. Perhaps this is also what was involved in The Two Cultures. It took me a long time to understand this.
Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 1 by Percy, posted 01-10-2024 9:36 AM | | Percy has not replied |
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Rahvin
Member Posts: 4046 Joined: 07-01-2005 Member Rating: 8.3
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Message 4 of 9 (914361)
01-12-2024 12:25 AM
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Reply to: Message 1 by Percy
01-10-2024 9:36 AM
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quote:
When I started EvC well over 20 years ago I had high hopes. I believed that moderated discussion would bring the light of understanding to benighted evolution skeptics. But that never happened. I bet that if we all got together we could come up with perhaps as many as 10 people we convinced in all that time.
The process is slow. It's really hard to turn a creationist into...well, *any* shade of science-accepter really. But change happens. I owe a lot to this place. When I first started posting here, I was a devout Christian. I already accepted evolution, I wasnt a fundamentlist or creationist or even a cdesign proponentist, but my time here learning about logic, logical fallacies, cognitive biases, and how to debate with supporting evidence changed my life for the better. I very honestly would likely not be the person I am today without this forum and the debates here.
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In other words, burying someone in facts right off the bat doesn't work. Adding scorn only makes it worse. You have to first build trust and then only gradually introduce facts and/or arguments. And they have to resonate else they'll be rejected.
There's a strong similarity here with conspiracy theorists. There is "secret knowledge" that they posses that the rest of the world does not know. They "see the truth." Often they want to share it, too, but central is the internalized belief that they are among the superior few who recognize the true shape of things. Just as its very difficult to convince a politician to believe something when re-election, their power, and their livelihood depend very specifically on them not believing that thing, it's incredibly difficult to convince someone that they aren't special (in a good way, anyway) after all, they were not among the enlightened few, they were just fooled. Thats a big emotional fall. And it's not like "science-believers" or whatever you want to call it are immune from this. The mockery does sometimes come from a smug sense of superiority. Cutting wit and humor can be used to help illustrate a point, but usually not to the person you're directly speaking to. Christopher Hitchens was always amazing with his biting humor, but he never convinced the person he was debating to change their minds, nor was that his intended audience. Mockery can let observers see a person knocked down from their "enlightened" position and this sometimes helps move them away from irrationality. It works the other way, too - plenty of creationists try the same tactic, but the actual target is the audience, not any debate opponent.
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I don't see how building trust among evolution skeptics was ever possible here. Typically they appeared here already primed with misinformation that they could infinitely draw upon from the many anti-evolution websites. How do you go about building trust with someone whose initial post begins with (picking a topic at random), "Radiocarbon dating has been proved false. The world is only 5700 years old."? How do you respond in a way designed to build trust but that is honest, especially since their next response will probably contain blatantly and usually obviously false information from ICR that was carefully designed to be very convincing for those unfamiliar with science?
Im not sure what the answer is. Changing beliefs is strongly dependent on where you're starting from, not just the strength of your evidence. A key issue is that we don't merely disagree on the conclusion of evolution vs creation - we disagree on the foundations of what evidence even is. Facts are things that remain the same whether we believe them or not. Ideally we'd be able to easily present facts, show that they get reliable results, show why we think they are facts, and convince others to change their minds. But while the basics of science can be demonstrated to just about anybody, as you go up in complexity, experimental self-verification becomes less and less feasible. Time, lab resources, even the education needed to interpret things like radio telescope data, they're not trivial and inaccessible to most people. And of course sometimes even simple facts get denied. Flat-Earthers have some famous examples of having their own experiments prove the true shape of the Earth, sometimes the same individuals prove the globe with multiple separate and distinct experimental tests that all end up agreeing, and they still deny the results and try to come up with post-hoc rationalizations. Humans arent always rational. We're not rational by default, and even with practice we're not rational all the time. Sometimes we get lucky, and our prior probabilities are set by early education and cultural upbringing to align with scientific fact easily. Sometimes...sometimes we're raised in such a way that our identity and eternal fate are wrapped up in accepting authority regardless of what evidence might say.
“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.” - Francis Bacon"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers “A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.” – Albert Camus "...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995... "Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
1 Corinthians 15:26King James Version (KJV) Nihil supernum
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 1 by Percy, posted 01-10-2024 9:36 AM | | Percy has not replied |
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GDR
Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: 05-22-2005 Member Rating: 2.2
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Message 5 of 9 (914378)
01-12-2024 7:34 PM
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Reply to: Message 1 by Percy
01-10-2024 9:36 AM
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I’m a Christian and I don’t reject any science on the basis of religion. My problem with those that reject science, and particularly evolution, as a result of their Christian beliefs is that it leads others to believe that all Christians believe that way, and it makes Christianity, and the majority of Christians look ridiculous. This is largely a North American problem.
He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 1 by Percy, posted 01-10-2024 9:36 AM | | Percy has not replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 6 by Rahvin, posted 01-12-2024 8:36 PM | | GDR has not replied |
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Rahvin
Member Posts: 4046 Joined: 07-01-2005 Member Rating: 8.3
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Message 6 of 9 (914379)
01-12-2024 8:36 PM
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Reply to: Message 5 by GDR
01-12-2024 7:34 PM
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quote:
My problem with those that reject science, and particularly evolution, as a result of their Christian beliefs is that it leads others to believe that all Christians believe that way, and it makes Christianity, and the majority of Christians look ridiculous.
Compounding this, the most scientifically-ignorant Christians tends to be the most politically loud. Im not sure whether that's an effect of media amplification (thats a topic on its own), actual numbers, voting turnout, or what. Perhaps its a bias due to the fact that the policies endorsed and often passed by these people tends to have a direct and meaningful impact on peoples lives. See: Roe v Wade. The Christians who want abortion banned tend to not even understand basic reproductive anatomy, like the American Senator who said, out loud and in public, that the female body has "ways to just shut that down" in the case of pregnancy due to rape. Not to mention the countless women in danger right now of any life-threatening pregnancy-related emergency.
“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.” - Francis Bacon"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers “A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.” – Albert Camus "...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995... "Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
1 Corinthians 15:26King James Version (KJV) Nihil supernum
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 5 by GDR, posted 01-12-2024 7:34 PM | | GDR has not replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 5.4
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Message 7 of 9 (914383)
01-13-2024 8:56 AM
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How the US Ranks on Female Mortality During Childbirth
Here are facts that will persuade even the most intransigent evangelical about just how dangerous childbirth can be and just how poor a job the US is doing. The worst country in the world for female mortality during childbirth is South Sudan at 1223 per 100,000 births. The US is far, far better than South Sudan at only 21 per 100,000 births. Here are some of the countries we are better than: Iran, China, Armenia, Syria, Iraq, North Korea, Laos, Yemen, Cambodia, Haiti, Mali, Afghanistan and Chad. Isn't that great? We're ahead of Afghanistan and Chad? Here's a list of some of the countries we are worse than: Gaza Strip, Latvia, Egypt, Turkey, Oman, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Russia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Serbia, Lithuania, Qatar, Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Croatia, Czechia and Belarus. Isn't that great? Women die in childbirth in the United States at a higher rate than in Russia and Belarus. We should be so proud! To put the 21 per 100,000 rate of the US in perspective, here are the numbers for our close western allies: Portugal: 12; Canada: 11; UK: 10; France: 8; Ireland: 5; Italy: 5; Denmark: 5; SwedenL: 5; Japan: 4; Germany: 4; Spain: 3; Israel: 3, Norway: 2. If you only include Europe and North America then we are 3rd worst behind Cyprus and Mexico. Every other country is better than us. I'm sure all evangelicals are now convinced of the importance of due consideration of all possible appropriate medical care for pregnant women, including abortion. --Percy
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 8 by Rahvin, posted 01-13-2024 5:17 PM | | Percy has replied |
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Rahvin
Member Posts: 4046 Joined: 07-01-2005 Member Rating: 8.3
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Message 8 of 9 (914391)
01-13-2024 5:17 PM
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Reply to: Message 7 by Percy
01-13-2024 8:56 AM
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Re: How the US Ranks on Female Mortality During Childbirth
Let's not pretend that it's only a matter of evangelicals or a subset of religion, either.
Humans are not natively rational. We are absolutely terrible at weighing new observations against our existing beliefs. We resist changing our beliefs due to a number of outside factors that have nothing to do with whether the beliefs are actually accurate reflections of reality. Humans are social creatures and a huge amount of our beliefs come from the groups we socialize in. In many cases this is unproblematic - most groups of humans agree with basic things like the sky is blue, breathing is a good idea, getting stabbed sounds like a bad thing, and 2+2=4. But when you have a belief that is shared by a group you're a member of, challenging that belief also challenges your membership in the group. You're more likely to accept beliefs that are accepted by the group, and disregard beliefs not accepted by the group. A "group" is not necessarily a physical collection of specific people, it also includes the labels we assign to ourselves communally. Those evangelicals are not going to care about the mortality stats because they don't base their beliefs about abortion on any fact you can actually claim. They're going to believe that abortion is bad, because the group believes that "it is good to believe that abortion is bad." If they disagree, they might be excluded from the group. This happens with any number of group-labels. And it doesnt mean that labels are bad. It just means that humans need to learn, preferably at an early age, how to deal with peer and other social pressures, and how to change their mind. Most people never even consider what it means to change one's mind on something significant! It's not taught in school, families don't traditionally teach it, nobody teaches how to be wrong, accept that you were mistaken, and improve. Instead we mock people who are wrong. Even kids, we give them negative feedback for being wrong, we train them to be afraid of being wrong and want to be right without teaching them how to change their minds. Why do we need to find "commonality" and establish similarity of experiences? Because that changes the tapestry of social pressures and makes the challenged idea come from someone in a group you share. It coddles our fears about exclusion or being wrong. And it's not only a matter of social pressures and group membership either. We just have a lot of factors influencing beliefs that aren't related to the accuracy of those beliefs. It's why "science" isnt just the default way that humans have always behaved towards learning about reality. It's why the scientific method includes corrections for individual biases, mistakes, etc. It's something we have to learn and actually put effort toward. Most people have neither the time nor inclination to expend that effort. You can convince people of things they already mostly-believe. Everything else is really, really hard.
“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.” - Francis Bacon"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers “A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.” – Albert Camus "...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995... "Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
1 Corinthians 15:26King James Version (KJV) Nihil supernum
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 7 by Percy, posted 01-13-2024 8:56 AM | | Percy has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 9 by Percy, posted 01-13-2024 5:45 PM | | Rahvin has not replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 5.4
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Message 9 of 9 (914392)
01-13-2024 5:45 PM
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Reply to: Message 8 by Rahvin
01-13-2024 5:17 PM
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Re: How the US Ranks on Female Mortality During Childbirth
As a neuropsychologist friend of mine likes to put it, we're tribal. --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 8 by Rahvin, posted 01-13-2024 5:17 PM | | Rahvin has not replied |
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