Confirmation Bias

There is an excellent book review about confirmation bias from the New York Times by Michiko Kakutani concerning Tom Nichols and his book, “The Death of Expertise” (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/books/the-death-of-expertise-explores-how-ignorance-became-a-virtue.html)  The review is entitled, “’The Death of Expertise’ How Ignorance Became A Virtue”.  From the review…

“While the internet has allowed more people more access to more information than ever before, it has also given them the illusion of knowledge when in fact they are drowning in data and cherry-picking what they choose to read. Given an inexhaustible buffet of facts, rumors, lies, serious analysis, crackpot speculation and outright propaganda to browse online, it becomes easy for one to succumb to “confirmation bias” — the tendency, as Nichols puts it, “to look for information that only confirms what we believe, to accept facts that only strengthen our preferred explanations, and to dismiss data that challenge what we accept as truth.”

Citizens of all political persuasions (not to mention members of the Trump administration) can increasingly live in their own news media bubbles, consuming only views similar to their own. When confronted with hard evidence that they are wrong, many will simply double down on their original assertions. “This is the ‘backfire effect,’” Nichols writes, “in which people redouble their efforts to keep their own internal narrative consistent, no matter how clear the indications that they’re wrong.” As a result, extreme views are amplified online, just as fake news and propaganda easily go viral.

Today, all these factors have combined to create a maelstrom of unreason that’s not just killing respect for expertise, but also undermining institutions, thwarting rational debate and spreading an epidemic of misinformation. These developments, in turn, threaten to weaken the very foundations of our democracy. As Nichols observes near the end of this book: “Laypeople complain about the rule of experts and they demand greater involvement in complicated national questions, but many of them only express their anger and make these demands after abdicating their own important role in the process: namely, to stay informed and politically literate enough to choose representatives who can act on their behalf.”

“We have seen the enemy, and he is us.” – Pogo

I ran into such a situation this morning on Facebook.  This is not unique—it is one of the byproducts of social media—this “backfire effect”, as Nichols warned about.  There is a meme of one of the sons of Trump at the header with a picture of Nancy Pelosi that read something along the lines of, “Democrats are organizing a special committee to investigate Trump’s actions in the COVID crisis!”  My Facebook friend exclaimed in her repost, “These people are evil!”  Both she and the meme insinuating that democrats are obviously wrong for investigating the president’s actions during this trying time in American history.  This is, of course, her confirmation bias and the backfire effect is that she has doubled down on an exponential scale.  The facts, however, are hard to argue.  Is Trump responsible for COVID-19?  No, a molecule is.  A dangerous molecule, but a molecule, nonetheless.  Could one make a reasonable argument that he was negligent in his response in mobilizing the fight against COVID-19?  Yes.  Without a doubt (simply do a Google search for the president’s statements on the coronavirus from January through April—they’re all there and very well documented).  Should that be investigated by a committee from the House of Representatives?  Yes, indeed.  This is our system, a system of checks and balances.  If one branch becomes unbalanced, then it is up to the other two to right the ship.  This is basic civics.  If the tables were turned and there was a democratic president in the White House during this crisis, rest assured, the republicans would be forming an investigative committee, too. 

To be honest, I have had to beat down my own confirmation bias to stop myself from responding to her post.  Reason should win the day and, ultimately, in the war on ignorance.  But, if we can learn anything from the times that we find ourselves, that’s not a guarantee.  It is, at best, a 50—50 proposition.  At worse, the odds are not in reason’s favor.  Reason, the facts, and the truth—keeping with the season—are often crucified on the cross of confirmation bias.

My Facebook friend and I are on opposite sides of the isle, so to speak.  By succumbing to confirmation bias, we may just as well be standing on different planets.  Therefore, I said nothing on my friend’s wall.  There is no use in arguing with a mind that’s been made up.  Theirs or mine.  I take my shot—they take theirs and then we head to our neutral corners to have our wounds seen to before the bell rings and it’s time for the next round.  It’s ineffective, inefficient communication.  Before we start throwing around big words only designed to make each other look smaller we need to look for that common ground.  We must put aside that voice that tells us that, I must be right because this is what I believe or blindly trust in what we have been told.  We need to hold our own confirmation bias in check before we address the confirmation bias in others.  This will help us in finding common ground.  I’ll go one step further, I would hope that, once the quarantine is lifted this and similar conversations should be face to face and NOT on social media.  It’s easier to empathize with someone if they are a someone—a real person and not an avatar with an agenda that has their mind already made up.

I hope that on the other side of this we can find common ground.  Things are going to be different, but we have the capacity to work together through those differences—those inevitable changes to the world that are ahead of us. 

“How do we get through that?” 

Together.