An interesting post on The Economist‘s Democracy in America blog:
DAVID FRUM quotes the following passage of Charles Murray’s new book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960 – 2010″, in the midst of a long, scathing review (about which I here enter no opinion):
Data can bear on policy issues, but many of our opinions about policy are grounded on premises about the nature of human life and human society that are beyond the reach of data. Try to think of any new data that would change your position on abortion, the death penalty, legalization of marijuana, same-sex marriage or the inheritance tax. If you cannot, you are not necessarily being unreasonable.
I found this exceedingly odd. I can easily imagine what evidence would cause me to change my position on any of these issues. How about you?
The author, W.W. (The Economist‘s tradition of editorial anonymity extends even to its blogs), goes on to address each above-mentioned issue individually. On marijuana and same-sex marriage, for example:
Legalisation of marijuana. I support legal weed! If it were shown that marijuana is super-addictive, impossible to use responsibly, and that its users predictably harm others and/or egregiously harm themselves, I’d support something in the neighbourhood of status quo prohibition.
Same-sex marriage. I’m so pro, I almost wish I were gay so I could have one. If compelling evidence were unearthed that showed that widespread same-sex marriage really would precipitate the unraveling of the traditional family and subsequently the stability of society and the ruin of us all, I suppose I’d settle for the right of same-sex couples to shack up.
This all leads to the conclusion—not stated outright, but implied—that if you can’t imagine yourself similarly reversing course, you’re probably doing something wrong.
I’m not convinced. I’m not overly interested in taking a utilitarian approach to policy issues to begin with, except to the extent that I’m not sure there can ever be an overall societal benefit to prohibiting a behavior that causes no direct harm to others, and thus libertarianism is utilitarian, but that’s neither here nor there. W.W. tries to circumvent the libertarian argument by describing a hypothetical world where pot is “impossible to use responsibly” and “predictably” leads to others being harmed—a level of dangerousness that makes prohibition seem defensible, if not imperative, but is also absurdly out of line with everything I’ve ever read or observed about marijuana.
And it’s the same with marriage—sure, W.W. would reconsider, given “compelling evidence” of the imminent “unraveling of the traditional family,” leading of course to “the ruin of us all.” And that evidence should be surfacing any day now, right? There’s nothing especially open-minded about saying, “if a thing turned out to be different from what I thought it was in every meaningful way, then perhaps I’d think about it differently.”
Underwhelmed by The Economist, I clicked on David Frum’s “scathing review” of Murray’s book. Here’s what Frum had to say in response to the above-quoted excerpt:
[I]f you announce that there can exist no possible information that might change your mind about abortion, the death penalty, marijuana, same-sex marriage, and the inheritance tax, then yes you are an unreasonable person—or anyway, an unreasoning one. I’ve changed my mind about same-sex marriage as experience has dispelled my fears of the harms from same-sex marriage. If somebody could prove to me that marijuana was harmless or that legalization would not lead to an increase in marijuana use, I’d change my mind about marijuana legalization. And so on through the list.
I try to be careful about speaking in absolutes, but I’m almost willing to here, because I have a very hard time imagining a set of circumstances that would change my view on same-sex marriage (or, to an only marginally lesser extent, the death penalty or marijuana), which to Frum makes me an “unreasoning” person. And yet, his evidence that he, by contrast, is a reasoning person, is that his view on marriage—to which considerable thought has been devoted, I presume—is in accordance with mine, and has been for almost eight months now. So is it that I need to be more willing to objectively assess the evidence and challenge my assumptions? Or is it that I’m just right, and I happened to get there before David Frum did?
I think everyone agrees that being willing and able to challenge your beliefs is a very good thing, but what’s being lost here is that you still have to be realistic about it. Several of W.W.’s examples only make sense in an alternate reality that in no way resembles our own, both in terms of what the evidence is and the likelihood of that evidence unambiguously supporting a particular conclusion. Frum, meanwhile, turns Murray’s measured language into hyperbole (“if you announce that there can exist no possible information that might change your mind…”), then pats himself on the back for deciding to support same-sex marriage and for being open to supporting marijuana legalization, and good for him on both counts, but those are two positions for which popular support has substantially increased in recent years, and with good reason. A cynic might ask what took him so long.
And I’ll leave it there, because apparently this is merely the latest chapter in an ongoing feud between Frum and Murray, and I have no interest in going down that rabbit hole. But the question—what would cause you to change a strongly held opinion, and when, if ever, is “nothing” an appropriate answer?—remains an interesting one, and undoubtedly there are better answers out there than what I’ve seen so far.
One way to interpret Frum’s remark in as forgiving a light as I can think of is to assume he’s talking about falsifiability, in the scientific sense. A theory is a scientific one only if it is falsifiable.
(For those who don’t know: Falsifiable means that if in fact the theory is false, there is some observation that if it was made would show that the theory is false. It doesn’t mean the theory *is* false, just that there is some way to show it to be false if in fact it is. For example, observing a black swan would disprove the theory that all swans are white. Anthropocentric global warming (AGW) is arguably not falsifiable to alarmists because *everything* is interpreted as evidence of AGW. An unusually hot summer? Blame AGW. An unusually cold one? AGW. Too many hurricanes? Attributed to AGW. Hardly any hurricanes? AGW. And so on.)
The question is whether the standard of falsifiability can and should be applied to matters of opinion (especially on socio-political issues) in the same way as it is applied to science.
I certainly don’t have problem imagining something that would cause me to reverse my opinions, and therefore my opinions are “falsifiable”. It doesn’t mean that the thing I have to imagine has any remote chance of happening — I do not, for example, think anyone will produce any sound evidence to show that same sex marriage will destroy society.
The criteria of falsifiability does not require the falsifying observation or event to necessarily be a likely or realistic one.
I agree this is a difficult issue but I think part of the difficulty is a lack of distinction between truth propositions and hermeneutics (interpretation of facts).
Falsifiability pertains to propositions of facts not hermeneutics. If you want to suggest that 1 + 1 is not equal to 2 then I could easily acknowledge that in perhaps some alternate from of math 1 + 1 may not equal 2 and therefore, I can make the claim for falsifiability that 1 + 1 = 2. However, if the claim is made that the standard notion of math states that 1 + 1 is not equal to 2 then most would agree that the facts are indisputable. This is because implicit in the ‘standard definition of math’ is the fact that 1 + 1 = 2. A tautology is always necessarily true as A = A is always true no matter what the ‘facts’ are so with regard to fasifiability it makes no sense to suggest that true is not true.
However, if I were a member of a ‘flat earth society’ type group that did not believe tautologies were necessarily true, I would have a hermeneutic, a philosophical interpretation, that may be contradictory (and even deny the principal of contradiction) – the whole notion of Comte’s falsifiability would prove that my hermeneutic (Comte thought this in terms of religious) was dogmatic – mere opinion. However, this would likely not change my mind.
A hermeneutic is not a fact – it is a predisposition to facts. Predispositions affect me personally, subjectively, and my understanding of the world. Facts that do not involve me personally are easier to lay claim to the fasifiability quotient.
I used to be for capital punishment but after a while I opposed it because of cost issues, race and equality of punishment for the same crime, the inability to show a deterrent factor and more important the contagious kind of vigilante type psychology that always seems to accompany it. I think I could change my mind if the facts could be clearly determined to counter those arguments – it would not bother me personally to have to change my mind.
However, many years ago in the South I was a fundamentalist Christian. I was associated with people that were trying to tell me that Hell was not eternal. I argued with these folks for many years but they made me dig into Greek and Hebrew texts and language to disprove them. It took me a long time but eventually I had to admit that they were right and the vast preponderance of the evidence was against my former position. That was a very hard transition to make for me as my hermeneutic at the time could not allow that belief. The belief effected me personally and my understanding of the world at the time. It was not a mere truth proposition to me that Hell was eternal but a passionate belief that explained the world to me. My belief in eternal Hell was pretty close to being unfalsifiable but eventually a dogged determination to get to the bottom of the matter was the determining factor for changing my belief.
Most people will not do the work it takes to find out what is the case in a matter of hermeneutics. However, they regularly hear counter facts to their current beliefs (i.e., medical) that they adopt as true. When there is no skin in the game falsifiability is not a big problem. I also think that most folks are not accustomed to having to change their minds when it comes to hermeneutic questions so generally they do not – they don’t just cling to guns and God they cling to truths that inform them what their personal existence is about. No one can willy-nilly just change their mind in these types of matters. These kinds of positions are practically unfalsifiable. I would suggest that it may be possible but it would take a lot of work AND a belief that facts matter – that at some point there may be a preponderance of evidence that require a different hermeneutic.
If “Anthropocentric global warming (AGW) is arguably not falsifiable to alarmists because *everything* is interpreted as evidence of AGW” is the case, the hermeneutic interprets all possible data as human caused as Jeff stated. Alarmists are not is short supply as CPAC vividly demonstrates. However, if (and I do not know this is case because I have not studied it) one thinks that science is a hardy method for determining truth propositions then a thorough examination of the studies might give some indication of where the truth lies – evolution as well. I suppose it is a matter of how much time and work you want to devote to it AND the belief that there are determinate ways of arriving at the truth. If neither one of these variables are in play the hermeneutic is, effectively, unfalsifiable and dogmatic.
I have a question for your guys – I have the impression that 1/3 of independents typically vote Republican, 1/3 typically vote Democrat and 1/3 are truly swing voters – Is this correct? What about libertarians? Is it a ‘tend to vote’ 1/3 Repub/Dem/Libertarian ticket – do you know?
Also,
“The question is whether the standard of falsifiability can and should be applied to matters of opinion (especially on socio-political issues) in the same way as it is applied to science.”
Another thing about science is that science is the method of rigorous peer review. A lot of the work I mentioned in my previous comment is part and parcel of science. Scientists do not have any tolerance for crap. You better be on you’re A game if you want to play with those guys. Even still…I don’t know if any of you have read “Structures of Scientific Revolutions” by Kuhn but I would highly recommend it. It is an inside view of some of the dirty little secrets of science. It blows apart the lay persons idea that science is about ‘truth’ and historically demonstrates that equally ‘true’, multiple paradigms of science compete and win out on lots of other factors including money, politics, populism, career making, etc. than the best ‘truth’ (or elegance, simplicity, completeness, etc.) – it is a very messy process but in defense of science it is rigorous to a degree that most regular folks would be unwilling and probably incapable of dealing with. So, to take the scientific method and try to apply that to how folks form their common opinions is, in a way, ludicrous – the charge of falsifiability would be much easier for most. I do not think most people care if they have mere opinion which is why Plato thought that Democracy did not work – people are way too easily manipulated.
I think the question James poses raises another interesting question – if folks will not or cannot apply rigor to their opinions and worldviews, what does that say about Democracy? I have no answer for this only a question I puzzle over from time to time.
My impression is that a slightly larger proportion — maybe 40% or more — of independents are swing voters. I forget where I read that, though. Among libertarians (small “l”), I think the tendency is probably a bit more towards libertarians, say something like %20 R, %20 D, and 60% L. (Although that is just among voting libertarians; many libertarians refuse to vote out of “protest”.)
I’m a big fan of Kuhn, by the way. He basically showed that while science is an ideal, scientists themselves are human and subject to the same follies and socio-political biases as the rest of us. The hope (not just for science but for Democracy) is that the ideal will slowly win out in the long run.
Based entirely on my own scattered experience, I’d guess that at least half of voters who call themselves libertarian tend to vote Republican. Even more if it’s a close race and/or the Republican has a visible libertarian streak.
I’m surprised, Jeff, that you’d put the number of libertarians voting for Libertarians as high as 60%. Maybe I’m defining the category more broadly, because I’m thinking of anyone who would claim to be libertarian-leaning, or “mostly libertarian”, or anything like that—basically anyone for whom the main impediment to voting Libertarian is electability, not ideology (a group that probably also includes a lot of people who don’t call themselves libertarian, or even necessarily know what that is, but are either conservative primarily because of economic issues or liberal primarily because of social issues).
As for what this all says about democracy, I always think of Churchill’s sentiment that “democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms” (which has probably been long separated from its original context, but whatever). It’s depressing how bad people are at being self-critical and developing informed opinions, but if that’s the biggest problem with our political system (and I think it is), then we’re probably doing at least a few things right.
As far as putting the number voting for L’s as high has 60% — I admit I could be off here — I tend to hang with the “bleeding heart libertarians” these days so I’m more aware of libertarians who despise Republicans than I used to be. A few years ago I would have said that most libertarians vote Republican out of a sense of electability. Also, since social issues like same-sex marriage have come to the forefront, libertarians have become increasingly turned off by Republicans, I think.
I totally agree with your Churchill quote, too. The implicit hope in all this mess is that whatever critical thinking skills the public at large can muster will in the long run win out over the political shysters.
Also, this.
An advantage of getting the money of politics occurred to me recently. If the politics of morality, God, religion, rhetorical ideology, etc. is not promoted like a movie or network TV, maybe the majority of people that vote would be more like people that watch documentaries or PBS and are genuinely interested in politics and being informed…just a thought…