12/11/16

And that’s the truth!  Part II

My fake news website, Need2Know News, was a modest success.  I had almost 3,000 views within a week.  Some folks got that it was fake.  Others not so much.  Which is scary because if you look at the banner, it clearly says that a flying saucer has landed on the Mall in Washington, D.C. And that leads me to this second blog on what’s true and what isn’t.

Here’s the punch line. I’m putting it first because it’s the most important thing in this post: I want you to know how serious I am about the accuracy of what I print here.

It’s come to my attention that some of the readers of this blog believe that what I write is my opinion. If it’s my opinion, I’ll say so.  If I state something as a fact, I have at least one scientific study and probably more to back it up.  Just because I don’t always put in the link to the original study, don’t think I haven’t checked.

People have lots of different ways to determine what is real or true.  For the purposes of my writing here, I’m almost always going with science.  That means I’ve set my bar pretty high. It also means that if I say that say conservatives test higher on measures of conscientiousness, I’m not making that up to make liberals feel bad.And if I say that conservatives are more likely than liberals to test high on authoritarian personality measures and that they're less open to new experiences, that's not to make conservatives feel bad either.  

What it means is that I have evidence, based on real science, that says it’s true. I mean, look at their desks! OK, that’s opinion. The actual study looked at dorm rooms and offices of liberals and conservatives and found them distinctive in predictable ways. Guess which one is the liberal's...

http://2012election.procon.org/sourcefiles/the-secret-lives-of-liberals-and-conservatives-personality-profiles-interaction-styles-2008.pdf

Real science, in its most basic form, works like this:  You make a guess about what might be true.  Then you set up two conditions, one where that thing happens and another where it doesn’t.  Then you compare the results.  And there are techniques and rules to figure out if the results were just from random chance or if it’s likely they are really meaningful.

Same thing if I think there’s a relationship between two things, like political viewpoint and personality. The math is a little different, but the results can be treated the same.

Now here’s the big point: Science is falsifiable.  That means that a fact is only a fact until a better fact comes along.  And if that better fact has better evidence, then it replaces the old fact. That’s the way it works. When you find out you’ve been wrong, you stop being wrong. Yes, it can be uncomfortable.  I was originally trained as a behaviorist.  Now I’m writing about social cognition.  I can’t begin to tell you how big a shift that is!

Here’s an example: The other day I accidentally dropped the F Bomb in front of my 2 year-old granddaughter, only to hear her repeat it. Instantly.  Oops.  Can I blame this on the nanny?  Probably not.  So I got to thinking about profanity. I’ve always assumed people cussed because they didn’t have a vocabulary extensive enough to express what they really feel.  Plop in the F Bomb, and you don’t need to dredge up real words.

But is that really true? Apparently not.  I just finished reading this study that says a big vocabulary of taboo words is an "...indicator of healthy verbal abilities overall rather than a coverup for their deficiencies," and backs it up with evidence.  LINK.  

So now I will change my mind because the evidence says I was wrong. That’s how science works.  You generate a testable hypothesis, test it, and adjust accordingly.

In a perfect world, of course.  Scientists are human and get just as enamored of their theories as anyone else. But when push comes to shove, we go where the data lead us, even if it takes a while.

However, it’s not really feasible to apply that high standard to mainstream media.  So here are two more ways I’m going to use to figure out what to believe.

1.  If it looks strange or sensational, it probably is, so I'll check with snopes.com or truthorfiction.com for verification.  Both have excellent records. I find politifact.com to skew a little liberal, so I'm less likely to believe them.

2.  Instead of particular websites or newspapers, I’m learning to rely on particular people. Folks whose work and fact-checking I trust. These include, at this point, Washington Post reporter Christopher Ingraham (but not The Washington Post in general and not FOX News, though I'm working on liking Bret Baier) and at least two folks at fivethirtyeight.com: Nate Silver and Clare Malone.  I like that these people deal with ideas they don’t always agree with and that they’re willing to track down information and then change their minds when new information comes in. Oh, and the Pew Research Center, which is the gold standard on survey data.

So that's my goal. I'm far from perfect. If I screw up, call me on it.  I’ll listen to you.