Flattening the Misinformation Curve – some thoughts
Christopher Bramley
Executive/Leadership Coach | TEDx/Keynote Speaker | Advisor | Director @Finding Shores | Senior Leader | Director of Coaching | Complexity/Flow/Agility/Ecosystems/Learning | Author/Writer/Teacher | AASD1
I've been debating posting a Q&A on this for a while, as it's complex, but it's reached a point where I'm tired of debating, rationalising, and sensibly discussing this with people who think that simply asking questions designed to pick holes in reality to suit their narratives is somehow the same as presenting real-world?data or wholly reasonable logic.
It not only needs addressing, but people are being dangerous, so I'm going to put this down as a very basic (but in depth) addressal of a few vital issues killing people, sowing misinformation, damaging public trust, weakening ability to think properly, allowing governments and individuals to push through damaging policies or hide their failings, manipulate public consciousness to the point people genuinely can’t work out what’s good for bad, and far more. This is not a scientifically referenced article; it’s a quick, messy, basic set of concepts with links to explore more, to help with some understanding.
And I'll preface this by saying I'm not an expert in all of these areas, but that doesn't invalidate what experts are saying just because I repeat their words. Really let that sink in. I know a number of people in a number of fields that touch on epidemiology, philosophy, psychology, politics, biochemistry and more, and I not only have an ability to calmly, rationally, and genuinely critically think - which people knowing me will acknowledge - but the truth is paramount to me. I also work in fields of complex adaptive systems theory which is also a science and directly applies to a lot of the current crisis, and I specialise in human learning, narratives, mental patterns and a whole lot more, so my work touches on psychology, philosophy, sociology, logic, and neuroscience.
Here’s my recent TEDx talk covering a number of these things:
I'm not a PhD in any one of those things. This doesn't invalidate my work. People who ARE agree with me in general! I may not have got all of this perfect (sorry for typos and minor errors) – but it’s pretty much there, and any corrections will add clarity.
What I'm saying is I'm not basing this off a YouTube video that I simply find appealing, and I may know a little of what I'm talking about :) I know a lot of people who know a lot MORE, too. Whether you agree or not is beside the point - actually consider this post, READ all the articles/papers linked here (don't just dismiss them), and then ask yourself one authentic question:
Are you critically curious about your own viewpoint, or only other peoples’?
And then remind yourself of something REALLY important: Correlation ≠ causation.
This is heavily related to the coronavirus pandemic currently, but it's very closely integrated to many circumstances past and future too.
Right. The main areas (there are more, but I'm going to stick to these):
Why should we rely on what experts are saying?
Because experts within their context are EXPERTS. They understand the nuances to a breadth and depth an hour with Google is *not going to give you*, whatever Alex Jone's latest YouTube video says. If you spend years learning how to cook and are damn good at it, it’s offensive for someone to question that simply because they don’t agree with what or how you cook one meal, *especially* if they still demand you acknowledge their own areas of expertise.
Experts can be and are victims of inattentional blindness, but that’s not the same as being wrong within their focus. Almost always, they are correct in that specific context. That’s why they are experts.
Can "the science" be wrong?
No, but not for the reason many people think. "The Science" isn't an actual thing.
Using the term "the science" is a simple way for someone to wrongly frame it as a rigid, deniable construct to then be argued with, and wheel out diatribes about how many peer reviews are wrong, how scientists make mistakes, et al.
So here's the thing: there's some small truth to those - and that's EXACTLY what the scientific method exists to mitigate. It may be imperfect, but it's extremely good at being (exponentially) the BEST way to remove bias and find truth that we have. No other method comes close. That's because the truth and new data are more important to science as a whole than pride or agendas.
Why? Well, let's explain the scientific method clearly (and basically, sorry to all my actual science friends - feel free to comment!). The Scientific Method is a series of steps designed to propose causal links and prove repeatable actions to form knowledge.
Question/Curiosity -> Gather data/Research -> Form Hypothesis -> Test Hyopthesis/Experiment -> Analyse Results/Check Alignment -> Communicate findings
Findings are peer reviewed. If they match up they may become a Theory, or even a Law of Nature (Gravity was a former that became the latter).
The last steps are critical to understand. If you find your hypothesis was incorrect (you look at all the results given, not just what you desired), you start again with a different one. What does this mean? It means that if a scientific expert tells you something as fact, it's been tested independently by a metric shit-ton of other scientists, who usually WANT to disprove it. That they didn't tells you it's viable. Until a new hypothesis arises that eventually gives a theory which disproves yours, that's the end of it; it's literally evidence beyond reasonable doubt. Everything in our lives came from this - electricity, phones, medicines, cars, you name it. Stop using these things if you don't believe in the process that creates them.
So science is just the least biased way we know of explaining things - a method, an instruction manual and heuristics to correctly explore and evolve a question continually through data. When you “do” science you get data from those experiments. Other scientists query how the experiments were done. Science as a whole is much more reliable than literally anything else. From all these data then tentative conclusions are made – tentative because science is rarely definite until a theory has been formed. Science needs a LOT of data from multiple independent sources to say things with certainty. That’s why you can trust “the data” – it’s nearly impossible to manipulate more than one of those data gathering exercises.
A Theory comes when this model has been repeatedly tested in multiple experiments around the world by multiple people. When lots of data all points the same way, a consensus is formed, and when THAT has been hugely tested and is very solid and can accurately be replicated and predicted, THEN you have a Theory.
A Theory evolves based on new data, but if it's disproven, it is nullified, immediately. End of story.
Scientists TRY to disprove the findings of other scientists. This isn’t a validating little friend’s group. Some scientists do have agendas or care more about money than science, the same way some bands will lip sync and care more about money than the music. Most don’t.
Again… the scientific method exists to remove as much bias as possible. It is globally spread, tested, argued, and self-corrects and manages. If a theory is accepted, and peer reviewed, and there is dissent, a scientific consensus (which is global) is pretty much what gives the clearest likelihood of truth. Mistakes can be made; this does not invalidate all of science because they become part of the evolution of those theories. Once again, Science WANTS things to be proved wrong, because then new theories taking that into account are formed. Knowledge evolves based on new facts as best we know at the time, taking the old into account too. Knowledge is gained, not lost.
Nothing can ever be perfectly explained 100%. That doesn't mean what we CAN explain is invalid. Remember this.
So: there is no "the science", it is not static, and it can't be proved wrong, only evolved in understanding based on what's there which changes based on mistakes or new data. It literally evolves alongside new information, so it can't be "wrong". It's not a single rigid concept, unlike the desperately held beliefs of opinion and conspiracy. The end. If multiple theories and studies exist, trusting them is the best thing you can do, in their specific context. Nothing stays accurate out of context, and that’s what people who want to disprove something cognitively uncomfortable do; they change the context.
Where conspiracies are not critical or coherent is that they ask the question, they do SOME research, they form a hypothesis on incomplete biased research, and then that hypothesis is taken as fact if it simply queries something else - NOT if it proves anything, mostly because it can't. More on this later.
…don't use "the science" as an argument, in other words.
But don’t Scientists get it wrong?
Oh, yes. In fact, the core idea of conspiracy theorists and anti-science activists is actually correct: bias in science *can* exist, and when the scientific method is not adhered to it skews data and knowledge massively. There ARE scientists with agendas who try to push them through.
However.
The scientists who do this are not only rare exceptions, but they are almost inevitably the ones used as examples of experts by those trying to upset rational thinking and evidence beyond reasonable doubt. Or: the scientists with agendas who don’t care about real science are in many cases the ones being claimed as experts by conspiracy theories!
Many of these people have been proved wrong or even liars through multiple independent (often concurrent) tests of the data, plus new data gathered.
Read this excellent referenced article on why you shouldn’t trust one person who is not a leader in her field and has been caught falsifying scientific data (and retracted it):
That isn’t “big science” hiding truth – that’s one serial fantasist being offered as a “world expert” to make a documentary seem valid. Judy Mikovits makes claims in Plandemic (and prior) that have zero substantiation and have been consistently proved false. She has flat out lied and been caught doing so. Other noted scientists who got it wrong? Ansell Keys (“fat is killing us, not sugar”, debunked over 3 decades of more research. We need fat in our diet), Andrew Wakefield (“MMR vaccines cause autism” – debunked, what, 37 times now globally?). There are more.
This being the case, why do many claim these people, who are either shown incompetent or liars, are experts who are bringing a hidden truth? Because the claims are presented in an appealing, cabalistic and “only the chosen few know what’s really going on” fashion by people who propagate conspiracy questions as negating available evidence – an unbacked opinion which somehow has as much weight as the body of facts.
(Why would they do this? Read down to the Conspiracy Theory section.)
So why should we trust Keys, Mikovits, or Wakefield? They falsified findings fraudulently, or did not operate scientifically, or flat out refused to admit they were wrong, before finally retracting their work in most cases. They have then been listed as unreliable, unable to perform science correctly, fraudsters, or dangerously self-convincing. They have also been outed, barred, or even had their doctorates *removed*.
They literally are the problem with trust in science. Where studies are done incorrectly, or flat out falsified, they damage that trust. An issue is media often picks up on these new truths sensationally, but fails to then pick up on the fact they are completely debunked on further investigation (remember, how science actually works).
Final thought? Absolutely, some very few scientists have agendas, or are wrong. The tragedy and irony is that they are usually the very ones people support as experts. Most scientists are more interested in learning truth. That’s why they are scientists.
What about "the data can be manipulated"?
As mentioned above, this is not accurate in terms of studies and scientific data because attempts are made to be neutral and it comes from multiple global independent sources. It's like saying you don't trust sourced and cross-referenced data on a site because you feel the site has an agenda. If it does or doesn't is irrelevant: if it's cross-referenced and independently sourced, it's likely to be correct. When you talk about quantitative data sets, especially if they are given context by qualitative narrative, what you're really saying is that you distrust the interpretation of that data. That's wholly reasonable if you admit that - which is why the scientific method exists.
Again, once you are given evidence beyond reasonable doubt and ignore it, you are not interested in "finding truth", you're interested in psychological safety, personal inadmission to be wrong, fear, and a number of other things.
…you can probably trust articles on Fullfact and Snopes as much more accurate than a random video, given they are referenced and sourced, in other words.
How does this relate to COVID-19?
Read this Q&A by a leading virologist:
It explains a huge amount about the novel coronavirus, and all your questions are answered. If you don't bother reading it… it's clear you don't want to actually know. Extremely detailed, sourced, reasoned and backed paper. Also amusing.
(We live in an age of dismissal of expertise and lack of critical thinking, which I'll address below with conspiracy theories.)
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So what is evidence? What is scientific methodology providing?
When science says “evidence” it means evidence beyond reasonable doubt. Provable, repeatable, recordable, causally linked information that explains using reality, reasoning, and logic.
But everyone is entitled to an Opinion!
Agreed – although I invite you to consider implications of the word “entitled”. You can have an opinion on anything, and that’s fine until you think an opinion based on little or no evidence has as much weight as something based in provable fact. It doesn’t.
Opinion cannot trump evidence beyond reasonable doubt in the form of scientific study. It is unsourced. All it does is say "you're wrong" by denying likely reality, and pretend that evidence means nothing. It's question without solution. It isn't causal. It's literally wilful ignorance, if it is held to in the face of reality.
Opinion can argue opinion; we all have opinions. Opinion can't argue provable fact. One is based in emotion and desire (first-fit mental patterns and human decision making, message me for more info); one is based in reality. I'll leave you to guess which is which. This isn’t helped by some poor communication on the part of scientists sometimes, and media’s proclivity for sensationalising, publishing only part of the findings, or changing the context (“chocolate scientifically reduces fat” is as fallacious as “chocolate causes suicide”. There may be correlations between both when viewed in a specific way; that’s not causal.)
But vital information has been censored!
“Opinion” and “Freedom of Speech” are often touted as being suppressed when countered by fact or removed where they damage trust in proven facts. So let’s clarify that right now:
If a government prevents you speaking at all, that impacts your right. If freedom of speech includes persuading people that you can do something harmful during a pandemic, it is not censorship for publicly-minded private companies to deplatform you. They’re exercising their own rights.
Deplatforming is not censorship.
That’s the funny thing about rights – people often only seem concerned with their own when it suits them. This is not how rights work.
Questioning Vs "ignoring evidence to suit all personal narrative"
BE CURIOUS. Question! We must all do this. But this is NOT critical thinking. Critical thinking includes being critical of your own thinking and seeking solutions. This isn't just linked to intelligence or education; there's also a flexibility of thinking involved, as well as the difference between categorisation of data vs allowing sense to emerge from data. Ignoring expertise and evidence also shows a breathtaking arrogance whereby your own expertise in your area is expected to be accepted but you refuse to accept that of others.
This is linked to the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is a likelihood of some people to overestimate their own level of skill or knowledge (in this context, being right). They fail to recognize genuine skill in others, and fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy. Without this, they will not improve, learn or grow in any meaningful way.
If you never question whether you might be wrong, you might want to start doing so, because there is a firm degree of DK and narcissism involved in the reverse, and it’s a fragile place to be.
There is no failure; only feedback. Being wrong is being human. We're all wrong. Use it to learn truth. If you won't, you won't learn and grow.
Use the principle of Occam's razor: the simplest answer is usually the correct one. It is a heuristic device which is fundamental: the simplest explanation is likely to be the true, to paraphrase. It is a far higher cost to have something complex be true when it could be simple.
You don't need to make up complex constructs to explain things when the answer is usually right there. But that's the realm of…
Conspiracy theories
I suspect a number of people will skip this section because it makes them uncomfortable. I urge you not to: read through, look at the links. Try to be objective. And the last area on why they are dangerous is really important. Please read it.
Conspiracy theories pretty much tie up all of the above into a chaotic little package. Now, there are true conspiracies; but they are often right there (like the likelihood the UK Government has continued pursuing a herd immunity tactic low-key in all but name based on their actions). You don't NEED to make up extra, super complex and unlikely stuff. But that's not what these theories are about.
I don't like calling them theories because that conflicts with scientific theory as above. They are hypotheses that state Correlation = Causation, and that Unanswered Questions negate Available Evidence. They're easy and attractive to believe, usually dressed in interesting YouTube videos. They can be slick AF. And having worked in media I know how much more powerful a convincing video is than a dry article with sources. That's the danger.
Conspiracies and misinformation have exploded with social media, which (quick background) bypass our social filters because they are fragmented narratives without context, which can be easily collected and fitting to our personal narratives. We've ALL shared something that isn't true because we thought it sounded reasonable, myself included. You just have to have the capability to admit it and redress it. This ties into learning, mental patterns, and a number of other things I deal with in complexity and human learning. It's a huge topic but I'll briefly cover three main areas:
Why are they so enticing?
Here's an actual sourced article from an expert on the matter:
They appeal for a number of reasons and they are insidious. Much of the above (DK effect, fear, need to be right, need to belong, inflexibility of thinking, lack of critical thinking, mistrust of experts et al) is linked.
How do they persist and thrive?
Watch my fellow TEDx Speaker Elise Wang, who studies this, cover this excellently here:
Why are they are so dangerous?
Many conspiracy theories are created, modified, and propagated by political extremes, especially the far right. Don't believe me? Look at how many have been pushed by Russia, 4Chan, Qanon, Alex Jones and on, and to a lesser low key extent Joe Rogan et al as well. Plenty of analysis out there:
They find ties to concepts of neoliberalism, Taylorism, (mostly, but not only) far right ideology and Buchanan inequality (more on this another time), but for now I want to focus briefly on the 3 most alarming aspects:
So now consider why we're seeing a rejection of fact and a rise in fascist and authoritarian ideologies across the world in a time when we should be more aware, connected and knowledgeable than ever before. Consider how long this has been going on for, in combination with everything I've mentioned (neoliberalism, Buchanan's inequality constructs, Taylorism et al). This is a very deep rabbit hole, but for now just remember this:
If you readily believe conspiracy theories and support them, you are doing the low-key work fascism relies upon. That’s why it’s being normalised and gaining footholds across the west. This isn't dramatic or a joke. It simply is. Think about it carefully; maybe read more here:
Here's a last thought on it all, whether it's "Plandemic" or "Climate Change" or Covid-19's origins, spread, or how it should be tackled: if 99% of the globe's experts on a topic say one thing, and you find 1% disagree… how does that stop the 99% being right? Especially since that 1% is usually discredited or notoriously unreliable (Miskovits, Keys, Wakefield et al). If 1000 balloon specialists watch a helium balloon inflate and rise into the air with someone under it, and 999 can explain how it works, and 1 person says "I’m a balloon expert, and that isn't true because we can't actually fly", who's more likely to be right? Someone is still in the air.
Exponentially rarely, the outlier one is a plucky hero who is right. Almost ALWAYS… they're not. Stop watching action films of the one wronged underdog upheaving the wicked bureaucracy. They're not really true. It's Hollywood. The lone scientist you’re listening to on YouTube is often discredited (or may not even be a professor in the area they are speaking about!) and you should listen to the MAJORITY - not the only one who says what you want to hear.
Psychological safety and belonging
This is addressed in the articles and TEDx above but I wanted to highlight it. This isn’t about tribalism. If someone presents reasonably sourced facts beyond reasonable doubt, that's what you should trust. The more often something is correctly and contextually referenced as a concluded source of genuine data without bias, the stronger it gets as our best understanding of the subject.
So explore, be curious, question everything - but also question what you're reading and WHY it might feel so appealing. The more enticing and attractive, the more you should be suspicious! Look at evidence beyond reasonable doubt, not supposition, opinion and conjecture wrapped in a package telling you you’re one of the chosen few to know the truth. Remember Occam’s Razor? How likely is it a YouTube video without valid references can make you one of the “chosen few” (million)?
What really happens here is often an aspect of Fear. Fear of being wrong, of "them" watching or controlling or taking your roles or assets, or of not belonging, which is a fundamental aspect of Psychological Safety. It's been shown that many right wing voters (including conspiracy theorists) have enlarged amygdalae (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201104/conservatives-big-fear-brain-study-finds ; or, https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/your-brain-on-politics-the-cognitive-neuroscience-of-liberals-and-conservatives ). Look at most of the far right wing messaging in recent years, conservatives included, and you can see a clear pattern.
(That's not saying all right wing stuff is inherently awful. Stay in context here :) )
Now, much of this is backed by a number of studies over the years, some recent; some of this is what I've noticed in my own studies so is also a matter of experience. I never assume stupidity in people, but there is a level of wilful ignorance. Choosing wilful ignorance is the real sin here, not being misled, and we are also very often misled. You have the tools to break free of categorised inattentional blindness; this is what complexity theory is about, finding ways to see things you wouldn't normally and let truth and sense really emerge from what you're seeing, not what you want to find. It can be painful to be wrong, but I'd rather be wrong and learn than be wrong and pretend I'm right.
If you truly question and are curious, you must accept evidence beyond reasonable doubt. If you discard it as not sounding like what you wish to hear… I am afraid you have no interest in “truth”, but want to be part of a cabal of people who "know better than the sheeple", and you're rejecting what got you here, on the internet, alive and well in modern society – worse, you put others at risk, spread the pandemic of wilful ignorance alongside the physical one of covid-19, which is arguably far more dangerous - and you support the far right’s attack on rights, people, progress, critical thinking, science, and democracy itself.
You want a conspiracy example? There's a REAL one, and there are plenty more (inequality, gathering of wealth, kickbacks and diversion of blame, corruption in governments, et al). If you have the ability to critically think, understand what science is as a process, and authentically query yourself, you might start to see Occam's razor, and learn to use it.
I’m presenting this as something for us all to consider. We all get things wrong, me included. What matters is using that to learn and become more resilient, not to simply avoid admitting we were wrong. I hope this messy, meandering set of thoughts helps understanding a little – if nothing else, there are some good links worth reading here!
If you think this is all bullshit, you're welcome to your *opinion*, but that doesn’t trump the facts, analysis, research, and ultimately independent data recorded over countless decades. Remember how that matches up to reason and evidence as per above, and have fun with the rest of your day. :)
#flattenthemisinformationcurve
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2 年Nice essay, couple of things "Hypothesis is misspelled above diagram showing the loop of science. - Theory can and usually does come first in scientific disciplines. I worked as an experimentalist in particle physics - searching for the neutrino mass. The neutrino was “theorized” in 1934 by Pauli before Fred Reines discovered it - our PI. See "Spaceship Neutrino," Christine Sutton. Experimental data can drive search for theory as well. Theory & Experiment co-exist in many disciples. See "The History of Physics" Steven Weinberg's "To Explain the Worlds: The Discovery of Modern Science" is a good overview of how theory and experiment play together to reveal “natures secrets” "What is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics," Adam Becker provides a current overview of theory driving experiment, in turn, driving theory. Our son is a "scientist" (molecular plant biology) who interconnects theory and experiment of how an why plants "evolve" in theory and practice to produce ammonia from nitrogen to make fertilizer for themselves and their "neighbors" For the disinformation topic start with Rand's "Truth Decay" https://www.rand.org/research/projects/truth-decay/about-truth-decay.html
Executive/Leadership Coach | TEDx/Keynote Speaker | Advisor | Director @Finding Shores | Senior Leader | Director of Coaching | Complexity/Flow/Agility/Ecosystems/Learning | Author/Writer/Teacher | AASD1
4 年For the record, it's worth noting the clear distinction between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory.