Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Ad hominem attacks on scientists just as likely to undermine public faith in research as legitimate empirical critiques
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsci...critiques/

EXCERPT: Media coverage attacking the character and trustworthiness of a scientist can diminish public faith in the research findings of that scientist. Ralph M. Barnes, Heather M. Johnston, Noah MacKenzie, Stephanie J. Tobin and Chelsea M. Taglang have investigated the degree to which such attacks do undermine trust in that scientist’s research, and the relative impact of various types of ad hominem attacks. Perhaps surprisingly, purely ad hominem attacks, such as accusations of a financial conflict of interest, for example, prove just as effective in undermining public faith in research findings as direct criticism of the empirical foundations of a science claim....

MORE: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsci...critiques/

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Farming Ideology Trumps Evidence
https://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde...-evidence/

EXCERPT: A recent article in the Independent is, in my opinion, a good example of how ideology can overwhelm evidence and logic. The article is basically an advertisement for a book, *Dead Zone* by ornithologist Philip Lymbery, which is out in paperback this week.

Lymbery’s thesis is that bird and other animal populations are steadily declining due to modern farming. If we want to stabilize the environment, and stop or reverse this trend, we need to make major changes to how we grow our food. He then advocates for organic farming and a return to older farming practices. He blames the situation on the attempt to maximize food production.

I think that Lymbery has correctly identified a real problem – an alarming decline in wild species over the last century. However, his proposed solution would actually make the problem worse. It is a classic example of narrative or ideology getting in the way of evidence-based solutions.

[...] Lymbery’s [...] solution (shifting to organic farming) would decrease the use of some pesticides in farming, but would not eliminate them. It would actually just cause a shift to more toxic and less effective (but “natural” pesticides). This would be a disaster. The even worse problem with organic farming is that it is less productive. [...] A switch to organic farming would therefore require more land used for farming. [...] This all gets back to – what are the major causes of wildlife loss due to human activity. This, of course, is also a complex question. However, in my reading over the years loss of habitat is always considered to be the major cause. At the very least it has to be considered a major cause....

MORE: https://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde...-evidence/

(Mar 7, 2018 02:52 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]Ad hominem attacks on scientists just as likely to undermine public faith in research as legitimate empirical critiques
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsci...critiques/

EXCERPT: Media coverage attacking the character and trustworthiness of a scientist can diminish public faith in the research findings of that scientist. Ralph M. Barnes, Heather M. Johnston, Noah MacKenzie, Stephanie J. Tobin and Chelsea M. Taglang have investigated the degree to which such attacks do undermine trust in that scientist’s research, and the relative impact of various types of ad hominem attacks. Perhaps surprisingly, purely ad hominem attacks, such as accusations of a financial conflict of interest, for example, prove just as effective in undermining public faith in research findings as direct criticism of the empirical foundations of a science claim....

I'd guess that it happens in the professional world too, not just the proverbial "general public".

It might be like Pavlov's dog that associated a bell with the arrival of food. People can be trained to associate a particular name with the idea of "controversial", and hence train people to consider that person as somebody about whom skepticism is warranted.

I think that we see this process happening all the time in the media today, where writers try to marginalize other people whose views they don't like.

It's part of the reasonable process of critical thinking, pushed to excess, often with ideological intent. After all, the whole idea of "public faith in the research findings" of a scientist, which is supposedly being diminished here, is problematic on its face.

(Mar 7, 2018 02:52 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]Ad hominem attacks on scientists just as likely to undermine public faith in research as legitimate empirical critiques
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsci...critiques/

EXCERPT: Media coverage attacking the character and trustworthiness of a scientist can diminish public faith in the research findings of that scientist. Ralph M. Barnes, Heather M. Johnston, Noah MacKenzie, Stephanie J. Tobin and Chelsea M. Taglang have investigated the degree to which such attacks do undermine trust in that scientist’s research, and the relative impact of various types of ad hominem attacks. Perhaps surprisingly, purely ad hominem attacks, such as accusations of a financial conflict of interest, for example, prove just as effective in undermining public faith in research findings as direct criticism of the empirical foundations of a science claim....

MORE: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsci...critiques/

Classic Cult LEader practice.
knowing the cult followers do not have the intellect to investigate the claims.
its like casting a net for zealots.

probably should not be a big surprise in the modern alt-right dogma revival

(Mar 8, 2018 10:46 AM)RainbowUnicorn Wrote: [ -> ]Classic Cult LEader practice.

I don't think that analogy is very good, since leaders of charismatic alternative religious groups typically promote positive doctrines of their own, however bizarre. They aren't merely trying to discredit other people by associating them with something disliked.

Quote:probably should not be a big surprise in the modern alt-right dogma revival

The word "alt-right" is a much better example.

Literally it just means 'alternative-right' and there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

'Alt-right' merely refers to those on the right (there are very similar tendencies on the left too) who don't feel represented by the establishment Beltway Republicans of the big-business Wall Street sort, the lobbyists, the "never-Trumpers" of the 'conservative' punditocracy like Bill Kristol, and those who believe that the way to solve every problem is to lower taxes on the rich. In 2016 it led to something of a revolution in the Republican party, best captured by the word 'populism', whose synonym is 'democracy', elected representatives actually representing the views, wishes and interests of those who elected them. In other words, Athenian-style bottom-up rule where the voters determine the government's agenda (which is what the word 'democracy' literally means in Greek) as opposed to neo-aristocratic rule from above by political, media, academic, business, entertainment and sports elites who all imagine themselves as Plato's rightful philosopher kings, come together in thinking that they know better than you do what's in your own best interest (and who are willing to force you to accept it).

Nevertheless, the media has gone into overdrive to associate those (probably the majority of Republican voters) who want to move establishment elitist Republicanism in a more democratic direction with all kinds of disliked things: "white nationalism" (whatever that is), with "fascism", with "racism", with "homophobia" and "xenophobia" and no end of other exotic evils. There's rarely any evidence or argument to justify those associations, never anything plausible (it's based ultimately on the elite's fear of the people) but people start to associate the ideas in their heads anyway like Pavlov's dog if the conjunction is repeated enough times. (That's their hope, anyway.)

That's why I said in my first post that today's media are the poster-children for the process that CC's quote in the OP described in more academic terms regarding scientists. It's the exploitation of a psychological process that certainly impacts science and scientists too. (Just look at this board's "race science" thread.) But since it's the media that promotes it and science doesn't get as much media as politics, it's typically politics where the process of attempted destruction-by-association is most obvious. Probably a majority of political rhetoric these days illustrates it.

(Mar 8, 2018 05:50 PM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]It's the exploitation of a psychological process that certainly impacts science and scientists too. (Just look at this board's "race science" thread.) But since it's the media that promotes it and science doesn't get as much media as politics, it's typically politics where the process of attempted destruction-by-association is most obvious. Probably a majority of political rhetoric these days illustrates it.

How Science and Genetics are Reshaping the Race Debate of the 21st Century

There, are you happy now?

This seems to be the new norm for ''journalism,'' ad homs and opinions. Facts don't seem to gain ratings as much as insults and mud slinging. It's sad, because it's hard to know what to believe, and what new sources are even reliable, anymore.

(Mar 9, 2018 04:15 PM)Leigha Wrote: [ -> ]This seems to be the new norm for ''journalism,'' ad homs and opinions. Facts don't seem to gain ratings as much as insults and mud slinging. It's sad, because it's hard to know what to believe, and what new sources are even reliable, anymore.

I'm not convinced that it's new. Just look at how the old-style mainstream media portrayed Richard Nixon and how they reduced Barry Goldwater to a scary caricature. But it does seem to be getting worse. That might partly be due to the changing economics of the "news" business.

Fewer people are sitting in front of their TVs like people used to. Fewer people are buying printed newpapers or news magazines when they can get all the headlines online for free. Page counts and advertising revenues shrank and a number of publications stopped publishing print editions entirely and went online (where they compete with free content and continue to lose money).

Many print publications (Newsweek and some of the others were quite upfront about doing this) demphasized expensive photographers and reporters flying around the world into dangerous locations, reporting from the scene of news events. They just couldn't afford it any longer.

At the same time TV news moved to cable and became 24-7, unlike the old-style TV news-hour. That's a lot of time to fill and there just weren't enough breaking news events to fill it.

So both print and television "journalism" transitioned increasingly towards presenting opinion in the place of facts (pundits are a dime a dozen, often willing to work for free if they are promoting a book) aimed squarely at what the outlets' editors thought (or hoped) were their most loyal core reader/viewer base. So they started to specialize in telling a selected group of people what they wanted to hear.

That's the origin of "fake news". When fact and opinion become indistinguishable, "fake news" is inevitably going to result.

One thing that hurts the media when they try to do that is the fact that in most cases their core reader/viewer base seems to be indistinguishable from the partisan Democratic party base. The mainstream media are a bunch of wealthy and elite New Yorkers essentially talking to their friends and colleagues. Many of them don't even know any Republicans in their daily lives. So most of the media end up competing for the same group of readers/viewers and ignoring the portion of the country that doesn't look like New York or share New York-style ideas.

What does seem to me to be new, very unlike the 1970's, is the way that other half of America has seemingly tuned it out and no longer believes what the TV and newspapers tell them.

In the 2016 election, it's hard to imagine how the media could have been more hostile to a Presidential candidate. Trump was a "fascist", he was a "racist", and a clear and present danger to the Republic and to Western Civilization itself. (Mostly hyperbole, the destruction-by-association thing again and "fake news".) Yet he won, carrying 30 of the 50 states. Nothing could have shown more eloquently how much influence the media elites and the traditional media outlets have lost out there in Middle America. It's extraordinary and entirely unprecedented.

(Mar 9, 2018 05:03 PM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]

(Mar 9, 2018 04:15 PM)Leigha Wrote: [ -> ]This seems to be the new norm for ''journalism,'' ad homs and opinions. Facts don't seem to gain ratings as much as insults and mud slinging. It's sad, because it's hard to know what to believe, and what new sources are even reliable, anymore.

I'm not convinced that it's new. Just look at how the old-style mainstream media portrayed Richard Nixon and how they reduced Barry Goldwater to a scary caricature. But it does seem to be getting worse. That might partly be due to the changing economics of the "news" business.

Fewer people are sitting in front of their TVs like people used to. Fewer people are buying printed newpapers or news magazines when they can get all the headlines online for free. Page counts and advertising revenues shrank and a number of publications stopped publishing print editions entirely and went online (where they compete with free content and continue to lose money).

Many print publications (Newsweek and some of the others were quite upfront about doing this) demphasized expensive photographers and reporters flying around the world into dangerous locations, reporting from the scene of news events. They just couldn't afford it any longer.

At the same time TV news moved to cable and became 24-7, unlike the old-style TV news-hour. That's a lot of time to fill and there just weren't enough breaking news events to fill it.

So both print and television "journalism" transitioned increasingly towards presenting opinion in the place of facts (pundits are a dime a dozen, often willing to work for free if they are promoting a book) aimed squarely at what the outlets' editors thought (or hoped) were their most loyal core reader/viewer base. So they started to specialize in telling a selected group of people what they wanted to hear.

That's the origin of "fake news". When fact and opinion become indistinguishable, "fake news" is inevitably going to result.

One thing that hurts the media when they try to do that is the fact that in most cases their core reader/viewer base seems to be indistinguishable from the partisan Democratic party base. The mainstream media are a bunch of wealthy and elite New Yorkers essentially talking to their friends and colleagues. Many of them don't even know any Republicans in their daily lives. So most of the media end up competing for the same group of readers/viewers and ignoring the portion of the country that doesn't look like New York or share New York-style ideas.

What does seem to me to be new, very unlike the 1970's, is the way that other half of America has seemingly tuned it out and no longer believes what the TV and newspapers tell them.

In the 2016 election, it's hard to imagine how the media could have been more hostile to a Presidential candidate. Trump was a "fascist", he was a "racist", and a clear and present danger to the Republic and to Western Civilization itself. (Mostly hyperbole, the destruction-by-association thing again and "fake news".) Yet he won, carrying 30 of the 50 states. Nothing could have shown more eloquently how much influence the media elites and the traditional media outlets have lost out there in Middle America. It's extraordinary and entirely unprecedented.

I'm not familiar with how Richard Nixon, etc was portrayed, but you make good points. It could be that we just ''instantly'' hear or read everything now with social media. And social media for many is Gospel, over actual factual news.    So, it has changed how people write, in general. I was reading an article in The New Yorker the other day, and the writing seemed very casual and non-factual, for a non-fiction piece. It's almost like we are dumbing down how we write and communicate largely due to the casualness of social media language. I've read articles in popular mainstream publications where the use of ''lol'' is inserted into the story, and it's like what?

Lucky, at least Republican/conservatives have always been inundated with bias contrary to their own. Even with the growing alternative media, we cannot escape mainstream media sources (often still bearing the burden of investigation or just the go-to for sources seeking a platform). But we do have the wider view of things that help us fact-check all sources. All the "respected" fact-checkers are leftists. You cannot fact-check something if you are incapable of questioning your own base assumptions. And that requires an opinion from outside of your ideological bubble.