![]() The first because Harford’s stronger statements about facts are probably exaggerations, and he just meant that in certain cases people ignore evidence. If you get good documentary-makers, I assume both will be equally convincing regardless of what the true facts are.Īll three of these points are slightly unfair. Opponents of Brexit can make an engaging documentary about all the reasons Brexit would be bad, and then proponents of Brexit can make an engaging documentary about all the reasons Brexit would be good. And the tobacco companies can make an engaging human interest documentary about a guy who got cancer because of asbestos, then was saved by tobacco-sponsored research. ![]() The National Institute of Health can make an engaging human interest documentary about a smoker who got lung cancer. But his solution – telling engaging stories, adding a human interest element, enjoyable documentaries in the style of Carl Sagan – seems unusually unsuited to the problem. His key example is tobacco companies sowing doubt about the negative health effects of smoking – for example, he talks about tobacco companies sponsoring (accurate) research into all of the non-smoking-related causes of disease so that everyone focused on those instead. Third, Harford describes his article as being about agnotology, “the study of how ignorance is deliberately produced”. Yet Harford writes an entire article about a worldwide plague of false beliefs without mustering enough vigilance to see if the relevant studies are true or not. It seems to me that if you believe in an epidemic of falsehood so widespread that the very ability to separate fact from fiction is under threat, it ought to inspire a state of CONSTANT VIGILANCE, where you obsessively question each of your beliefs. This is especially true given that the article itself is about the way that false ideas spread by people never double-checking their beliefs. ![]() But given that the entire field is now in serious doubt, I feel like it would have been judicious to mention some of this in the article. This isn’t directly contrary to Harford’s argument, because Harford doesn’t cite the original study – he cites a slight extension of it done a year later by the same team that comes to a slightly different conclusion. The original study establishing its existence failed to replicate (see eg Porter & Wood, 2016). Second, Nyhan & Reifler’s work on the backfire effect is probably not true. But how is this different from all of those social science facts to which he believes humans are mostly impervious? Harford expects us to be impressed by this study. For example, the article highlights a study by Nyhan & Reifler which finds a “backfire effect” – correcting people’s misconceptions only makes them cling to those misconceptions more strongly. I think this is generally a good article and makes important points, but there are three issues I want to highlight as possibly pointing to a deeper pattern.įirst, the article makes the very strong claim that “facts are toothless” – then tries to convince its readers of this using facts. He thinks maybe we can inspire scientific curiosity by linking scientific truths to human interest stories, by weaving compelling narratives, and by finding “a Carl Sagan or David Attenborough of social science”. He admits he has no easy answers, but cites some studies showing that “scientific curiosity” seems to help people become interested in facts again. And giving people more facts can backfire, as those facts provoke a defensive reaction in someone who badly wants to stick to their existing world view. Important truths are often stale and dull, and it is easy to manufacture new, more engaging claims. Trying to refute a bold, memorable lie with a fiddly set of facts can often serve to reinforce the myth. Tim Harford writes The Problem With Facts, which uses Brexit and Trump as jumping-off points to argue that people are mostly impervious to facts and resistant to logic:Īll this adds up to a depressing picture for those of us who aren’t ready to live in a post-truth world.
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