When Humans Discuss the Truth

How to mitigate the pernicious effects of bias.

Human #1: Here is a fact.

Human #2: That is not a fact.

Human #1: Here are several sources that say the fact is indeed factual. 

Human #2: Here are several sources that say the fact is quite false.

Human #1: The sources you have brought are biased.

Human #2: All sources are somewhat biased. But the information they present is nonetheless true.

Human #1: My sources seem neutral and objective.

Human #2: Here are several sources demonstrating the bias and falsity of your sources.

Human #1: Here is another fact—somewhat related to the original one.

Human #2: Can we stick to the original fact in question?

Human #1: I don’t want to discuss facts with you anymore. 

This dialogue is a conflation of two conversations that I have recently had (stripped of the vitriol). Does it seem familiar? I suspect that a great deal of discussions unfold along these lines and that many end up conducted in ALL CAPS and often result in compromised relationships (or getting blocked if we’re speaking online). Why is it so difficult to make headway in a debate? Why does it so often seem that no amount of evidence can dislodge an entrenched position? 

I think the first and most obvious answer is that debate is conducted by humans and that the fragility of the human ego is breathtakingly enormous. We become personally enmeshed with our positions and to have our beliefs threatened in a real way begins to border on ego death—the scariest of all emotional prospects.

In addition, a vanishingly small number of people are really and truly interested in the truth. Almost everyone claims to be but then their intellectual conduct belies the reality—that most people have an undying fealty to their set of ideas and will defend them like the Alamo. How often do we hear the phrase “I was wrong?” Wouldn’t it be refreshing if politicians said that in debates? Wouldn't X be a much more hospitable environment if people could interact that way?

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do sir?

—John Maynard Keynes

There is, thankfully, an extreme minority of people who are in it for the actual truth. You can recognize them by their willingness to change their positions when they become aware of new facts. You can also observe that while they might passionately defend their position, there is generally a respect for the person with whom they are speaking and an assumption that the positions that they have come to were arrived at authentically and honestly. They are happy to be corrected. They love the search itself.  

Though they are idealized otherwise, the scientific community is every bit as subject to the inherent human bias as anyone else. Despite the brilliance of the scientific method, scientists are susceptible to groupthink, are affected by their authority figures, and are reluctant to be seen as breaking with the established norms. As Thomas Kuhn explained in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions back in 1962:

Almost always the men who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change. And perhaps that point need not have been made explicit, for obviously these are the men who, being little committed by prior practice to the traditional rules of normal science, are particularly likely to see that those rules no longer define a playable game and to conceive another set that can replace them. 

Image: goodreads.com

The real leaps in scientific achievement come about through the dying off of the old guard as the edifice that they built eventually log-jams the intellectual river. The young, who are much less beholden to the old paradigm, eventually unplug the stream. And it’s not just science, this can happen in any human endeavor, including spirituality.

Is that then our fate? Will most of us, even the most intellectually accomplished, remain enslaved to positions (many of them untrue) that we can’t muster the gumption to let go of? It’s a challenge, but one that I believe can be overcome. Here are some suggestions to do just that:

1. When you hear a piece of new information, before listening to any commentary on it, read it all the way through, let it marinate for a while, and then decide for yourself what you think it means.

2. Don’t let inertia dictate what you believe. Just because you believed something yesterday does not mean that you are obligated to accept it today. There is no shame in changing your mind.

3. Be emotionally detached. Striking images and raised voices will invariably make an impact on us. They do not, however, make the presentation any more true. Lead with your head and not your heart. 

4. Familiarize yourself with a list of logical fallacies and practice using them (red herrings, slippery slope, straw man, etc).

5. Embrace the discomfort of lack of clarity. It is easier and more satisfying to be absolutely sure of something. The nature of truth tends to be more subtle and more nuanced. It’s ok to say “I’m not sure.”