It is often times much harder to evaluate how much we know and don’t know about everyday life as compared to say ‘scientific facts’ for which we exactly know whether we know them or not know them. We all live with some understanding of the etiology of social phenomenon, or produce one when confronted with a question. Hence we instinctively feel that we know the nature, extent, and cause behind social phenomena. Our understanding of the world, and knowledge, is based on a wealth of information that we glean from living in the world. Our knowledge though is biased in one significant way – it is limited to the environment that we live in, and to the knowledge of outside world that modern communication technologies like TV, phone, books etc. make available to us.
The case of the climatologist
It is troubling when natural scientists have the same attitudes towards social scientists that they accuse the lay public of having towards them.
A prominent professor of Communication recently narrated this anecdote to me – “I was at the meeting for American Association for the Advancement of Science this past weekend. The meeting used to be dominated by natural scientist, and still is, though recently social scientists have been given more attention.
Anyways, this time the meeting was dominated by the topic of climate change. On Saturday night, I had the good fortune of having dinner with a group of climatologists who spend time complaining about how people just don’t get what they were saying. Some person sitting in his bedroom watching television says that ‘I don’t see any warming – last winter was still cold. I just don’t buy it’. The climatologists were clearly frustrated by this attitude, “Leave the science to us. If we tell you that something is going on- believe it. Just don’t come back and tell us that since you don’t notice something – it doesn’t exist.”
The conversation went on like this for long time and then the same climate researcher, who until then was expressing his frustration with public’s inability to understand science, stuck a more positive note saying, “Americans’ attitudes towards climate change have really changed over the past year. I think they now seem to be getting the message.” After some nodding from others in the group, the conversation eventually wended its way towards me as a scientist asked my opinion –”Aren’t you into communication or something. You must have something to say about this.” As a matter of fact, I did, given my own extensive research and interest in the area of communicating information about climate change. I said that I don’t think data supports such optimism- American public’s attitudes haven’t changed much on either the question of whether climate change exists, or for those who believe it exists on whether it has anything to do with humans. This climate scientist looked at me as if I was some sort of a moron who didn’t really know what was happening. He then proceeded to argue that I didn’t really know what I was talking about and the perception shift in American public’s mood was real and significant.
I was just kind of stuck by their attitude – it seemed to mimic the kind of attitudes they criticized in lay people, or the arm chair arbiters of data on climate change. The fact of the matter is that climatologists have little or no insight into people’s attitudes or attitude change. Their own attitudes are based on anecdotal evidence or convenient samples of their cohort rather than random sample surveys and yet they felt confident talking as if they knew all the facts.”
Stop for a second and ponder about what you know and what can be known. Think about say what you know about people’s support for Bush. There is a good chance that if you are a typical American, you have mostly either met Bush supporters or people who oppose Bush. Do you think that you can really reliably extend this anecdotal evidence to explain attitudes of 300 million people? The fact of the matter is that whatever idea you have a number of Bush supporters is either through what you know from the results of elections or the more or less scientifically conducted media polls. If you take that information away, you have little to judge the support of Bush by.
It may come as a surprise to you, but if you investigate carefully, about how little we actually know about the nature, extent, and cause of social phenomenon. It is very hard to look outside oneself – to think of a person who thinks differently, is equally convinced of the merits of his opinions etc. By either believing that others think like us or adopting social attitudes or ‘folk knowledge’ as truth, we continue to be uninformed.
The case of the cousin
A couple of years I was at my cousin’s family for a dinner. After the dinner we were sitting in the dining room when the conversation drifted towards poverty and the causes for poverty. My cousin, who comes from a well off family and was studying to be a doctor at the time, kept citing Oprah as ‘proof’ that the only thing holding poor people back was themselves. Eventually I got tired of her delusional argument and noted acerbically that she didn’t know what she was talking about. I said that I don’t even think that her opinion was valid and worthy of any attention. She took this, rightly, as an insult and said that every opinion was valid. I said that I disagree with this assessment. Since she was studying medicine at the time, I asked her how she would feel if I told her that I believed blood letting is a great way to cure cancer. She never answered whether she would consider my thoughts on medicine as valid opinions but kept to her guns arguing people’s opinions should be respected. I agree to the premise but of course I don’t buy the assertion every opinion is equally valid. Clearly arguments based on better data, and using better normative groundings are more valid than ones using anecdotal data with limited normative basis.
Anyways, I believe that my cousin was on to something like that climate scientist. I will use that to expand my thesis to the rest of humanity and not just natural scientists. There are normative issues and empirical issues in any social science debate. By normative issues, I mean moral issues or judgments about right and wrong and of course there is robust social science and philosophy around deciding what is right and wrong but at the heart of this kind of moral judgment people believe they have the right to their opinions. The other important component is the empirical part, testable items around which we have evidence. There is also validity of argumentation based on the way one cites data, the quality of data, logic, issue that is addressed, etc. Anyways, this second part is what average people typically completely botch. I am sure my cousin wants poor people to live comfortably, and I am sure the climate scientist wants good data on public attitudes towards climate change. With normative issues out of the way, social science provides ways (imperfect ways) to analyze causes (and hence find interventions) around poverty, and calculate any attitude change around global warming in Americans.
Let me summarize the arguments that I make above. Firstly, there is very little that can be reliably discerned from immediate environment about wider social phenomenon, and popularity of certain attitudes and ‘facts’. Similarly, there is little reason to believe that we can come up with a useful understanding of causation (and hence draft interventions or not draft any) about the wider social phenomenon. In fact it is hard to imagine that most people would have a good understanding of person level phenomenon, though they may rely upon them on a daily basis.
The second point that I want to make here is that argumentation based on anecdotal evidence has less validity than one based on better understanding of facts. We can always come up with convincing arguments that rely on anecdotal evidence, and the reason why they are convincing is because they tap into other people’s reserves of prejudice and ‘folk knowledge’, but they tend to be of little use if our real interest is in understanding and not winning a narrow debate or an electoral contest. Only facts or good social science can serve as basis for substantive ethical argumentation, which I believe is the only way to reach a better understanding of truth.
Lastly, what I am asking people to do is be more reflective and be more humble in accepting what they don’t know about social phenomenon and that includes social scientists.
