Dumb smart people

Chris Mooney (by way of digby by way of Krugman) delivers this depressing bit of news:

For Republicans, having a college degree didn’t appear to make one any more open to what scientists have to say. On the contrary, better-educated Republicans were more skeptical of modern climate science than their less educated brethren. Only 19 percent of college-educated Republicans agreed that the planet is warming due to human actions, versus 31 percent of non-college-educated Republicans.

Mooney continues:

But it’s not just global warming where the “smart idiot” effect occurs. It also emerges on nonscientific but factually contested issues, like the claim that President Obama is a Muslim. Belief in this falsehood actually increased more among better-educated Republicans from 2009 to 2010 than it did among less-educated Republicans, according to research by George Washington University political scientist John Sides.

Actually, this isn’t news.  And all it tells us about educated Republicans is that they’re human.

People don’t like to be wrong.  Set out to prove them wrong and the first thing they do, after telling you to fold it five ways and put it where the moon don’t shine, isn’t to look at the evidence you’ve carefully collected and presented in your kindly, well-meaning attempt to correct the errors in their thinking.  It’s to set out to prove to themselves that they aren’t wrong.

Sociologists have a term for this habit, and maybe it’s better to call it a reflex.  Self-Justification Bias.

And it turns out that the better educated you are, the better you are at self-justification.  Michael Shermer sums it up neatly in his book The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths :

Or as I like to say, smart people believe weird things because they are better at rationalizing their beliefs that they hold for nonsmart reasons.

Give you an example of how this works over on the left.  Most of us aren’t scientists.  Most of us don’t even know the science or how to do it.  Most of us don’t know how to think like scientists.  What we know is to trust science and respect scientists.

And then we know how to congratulate ourselves for being part of the “reality-based” community.

Take Krugman, for another example.  Not the man himself.  His place in collective progressive thought.  Ever read any of his work in economics?  Know why he was awarded a Nobel Prize?  How much does that work have to do specifically with what he’s been writing in his Times’ columns and blog posts?

We know he’s a smart guy when it comes to economics.  We know he’s won a Nobel Prize.  We know he has a pretty good track record as a political Jeremiah.  So what we know is to point to him when we need an expert to back us up.

How many arguments have you won or flattered yourself you won with the punchline, “Did you read Krugman’s op-ed?”

Krugman’s main contribution to the debate isn’t that he’s right---although he usually he is---but that we can use him to make ourselves sound “right” to ourselves when what we are is full of ourselves.

Left, Right, it doesn’t matter.  Vanity guides people’s thinking.  We are own favorite and most authoritative expert on every subject.  What college teaches us is tricks to defend us from facing our own stupidity.  Rick Santorum is wrong.  College doesn’t turn conservatives into liberals. If anything it turns them into more stubborn and self-satisfied conservatives.  Does a similar favor for liberals too, teaches them how to be more stubborn and self-satisfied liberals.  Students learn how to impress themselves with their own mental acrobatics.

Teaching students “critical thinking” is, sadly, a way of teaching them how to defend their prejudices, biases, and conceits against it.

Sorry if I sound grumpy.  I’ve been spending too much time on Twitter where it’s begun to look to me as though what passes for progressive debate these days is identifying an egregious example of Republican, conservative, Right Wing idiocy and passing it around for the rest of us to sneer at, shake our heads over, condemn, revile, sniff or scoff at---in short, to enjoy a mutual round of self-flattery.

And, yeah, I know, I’m very guilty of this myself.

And, no, I’m not saying that Twitter is a bad thing or that nothing good happens over there.

All I’m saying is that those people Mooney calls “smart idiots” aren’t only to be found among educated Republicans.  Lots of us are smart idiots too.  In fact, I think Mooney’s use of the term is a giveaway that he can be one himself.  (Chris, if you read this, you understand I’m the pot here, you’re the kettle, right?)  Make sure you read Mooney’s whole essay at alternet and then think about the way liberals have learned to name-drop the Enlightenment lately.  The essay is adapted from Mooney’s new book, due to hit the shelves in April, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science--and Reality, which seems perfectly titled if your intention is to give Democrats a reason to think their brains are so much superior to those Republican ones.

If you want to read about why there are so many smart idiots on both sides, read Shermer's book.   You’ll feel smarter for it.

___________________

Update, morning poetry edition:  Commenter RoyS says he wrote this verse some time ago, but I’m glad he left it for us today:

Of all that I hold probable,
Only this I know:
My wisdom only takes me
Where my folly wants to go.

And a big thank you to Batocchio for this extended reply.

Comments

[RayS]

Reminds me of a verse I wrote many years ago:

Of all that I hold probable,
Only this I know:
My wisdom only takes me
Where my folly wants to go.

We all consider ourselves rational, although most of our thinking is very fuzzy. I've only known 2 or 3 people who thought with any clarity. Unfortunately, I don't include myself among them, which is why I'm as skeptical about my beliefs as about others'.

[Audie]

Good points. But in my experience---- admittedly non- scientific and limited---- almost all of the right wing "educated" Republicans I have known and worked with in recent years earned their degrees in business or engineering. They hadn't studied liberal arts or natural sciences. They were well educated, but within narrow limits.

In this they were very different from my parent's and grandparents' generations of 'East Coast' Republicans. That now extinct breed was conservative, but most of them were reasonable and many of them were thoughtful.

[Batocchio]

Thanks for the book rec, Lance. I'll check it out. All humans are prone to blind spots and confirmation bias. The vanity of a pet theory can be dangerous, and even smart people can have crackpot ideas, and crackpots can get one right every so often. Trying to "win" an argument or "defeat" someone when amongst polite people of good faith is typically a warning sign. (I prefer discussions to "debates.") That said, confirmation bias, especially around ideology, is more prevalent in authoritarians and conservatives, and there's plenty of research in the social sciences to show that. (I'll be interested to see how Shermer's arguments relate to it, but I like the bit you quoted.) Liberalism as its best is about empiricism, the scientific method, and reflection – a good faith questioning of everything, including ourselves – and this is where community, honest friends and the arena of ideas comes in handy. There are times we can be too smug or falsely certain. But there are also times we can be too hesitant, and shy from the obvious implications of our diagnoses. There's that old joke about a liberal being a man so open-minded he'll take a position against himself in an argument. (Social scientist Jonathan Haidt, who was on Moyers not long ago, has some very interesting research, but falls into some of this.) Critical thinking can be, and is, taught, but of course the process is not foolproof. (I'm guessing your own experiences attest to both parts of this.) Learning is a process. "One does not learn the sitar, one studies it," and all that. Or as another saying goes, I don't trust the man who says he's seen the light, I trust the person who's still looking. There remain huge differences between the wonkish, humble and conscientious, versus hacks, versus zealots. (It's helpful to distinguish between our neighbors, who may be reachable, and the professional scumbags, though.) Strangely enough, while the people interested in good policy and good governance do get things wrong, they get things right more often than people eager to lie or do anything to accrue more power. (Personally, I feel guilty if I haven't read the full study that much-discussed article cites, etc. Also, too, Krugman's book The Conscience of a Liberal is fantastic, especially for its economic data.) Let's please not pretend that everyone's acting in good faith, either. Mooney has his faults, as do we all, but come on, if we're honest, they are still much smaller than those of a flat-earther or a paid oil company flack both insisting global warming is a myth. We can and should have adult conversations about our faults, but it doesn't change the reality that the leaders of at least one political party are absolutely dedicated to the destruction of the social contract and favor a kind of Randian neofeudalism. Their followers believe things that are factually false – and they do so because their leaders have deliberately lied to them for decades. Liberals are obsessed with being fair (case in point your post); conservatives are obsessed with power.

I agree with you about arguments from authority and the seductive danger of fashionable opinions, which infect the chattering class, but I think you're overstating your case to make a point. I would argue that false equivalencies, all that "both sides do it/are equally to blame" BS and centrism fetishism are hurting American democracy far more than liberals being overly certain and admittedly obnoxious at times. These are sins more prevalent in people who hate policy analysis, and determine the truth socially rather then (even trying to do so) empirically. (Not that anyone can be an expert in everything. As Socrates observed, wisdom is knowing what you don't know, as with Rumsfeld's known unknowns, but then there are those unknown unknowns, which is what I believe you're getting at.) Why not just say, I am fallible, I will make mistakes, I will be reflective and try to be open-minded and change my mind when I'm shown to be wrong, and I will keep cohorts who value this as well and will keep me honest (and grapple them to my soul with hoops of steel), and I damn well will keep a sense of humor, including about myself – but I will still make critical judgments to the best of my ability and act rather than being paralyzed? (And hey, Hamlet, what say you and me grab Prufrock over there and get a beer together rather than moping?)

All that said, I don't know what on Twitter set you off, and I'll assume your judgment is impeccable on that. Sorry if this long comment is too cranky. Three quotations to finish:

"The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment." – Bertrand Russell

"I do not insist that my argument is right in all other respects, but I would contend at all costs both in word and deed as far as I could that we will be better men, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things one does not know, rather than if we believe that it is not possible to find out what we do not know and that we must not look for it." – Socrates

Lastly, in his book The Heart of Philosophy, Jacob Needleman speaks of a good friend of his, a very successful, intelligent doctor, who is always extremely articulate. At a dinner Needleman throws, one of those amazing, deep, wonderful conversations breaks out — all the guests start talking passionately about their lives and philosophical ideas that touch them to the core. Needleman’s well-spoken doctor friend, he relates, becomes completely flustered and inarticulate at one point — but loves every moment of his own floundering, laughing as he goes — and everyone else at the table is absolutely riveted to what he struggles to say. Needleman observes, “he is compelling because he speaks from his search, not from his knowledge.”

Peace, Brother Mannion. Keep on keeping us all honest. (And always revere the Arts.)

[Earl Bockenfeld]

Lance, I think you're sense of balance and reason, is like asking liberals to bring a knife to a gun fight.

The whole conservative movement has "jumped the shark". There is nothing left but ignorance, resentment and bigotry. Consider Mr. Republican, Rush Limbaugh who this week said the following:

What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex. What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.

So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.

Rush is a jester, but he is no better than that Federal judge in Montana. A judge. Not some raving maniac from a Tea Party rally. A frigging judge who just said the following:

Richard Cebull, Montana's chief federal judge, admitted he forwarded an email comparing African-Americans to dogs and implying that President Barack Obama's mother had sex with animals..

When I see things like this, my main concern isn't that it will be harder to get contraception or make future political compromises. It's that a lot of powerful US people are so weirdly angry that they're going to obliterate human civilization. Just listen to the GOP debaters take on how to deal with Iran. How did Bomb-bomb Iraq work out? It isn't just about the women, it's more about the survival of the human species. But there are far too many of them Taliban extremists whose lizard brains are activated in exactly this same way. And they are all over the world, not just in our red states.

[Ken Muldrew]

Hmmm...science is a way of creating reliable knowledge. The key word is *reliable*. Like Krugman. You can use Laplace's law of succession if it makes you feel more analytical. As long as you are willing to change your mind when confronted with actual evidence that is contrary to your assertions, then siding with Krugman is just sound policy.

BTW, isn't twitter restricted to 140 characters? Do 140 character statements really constitute what passes for debate these days? I thought it was just creative spelling that showcased the redundancy in English word construction.

[Kaleberg]

It isn't that hard to think like a scientist, even about economics. It's just like movie critics. Just look at the experts and find the few who are usually right. Of course, with movies, it's a matter of taste. With global warming, it's a matter of reading the thermometer.

(To be honest, I was quite skeptical about global warming until fairly recently. Having a background in the sciences and having done work in remote sensing and meteorology, I had my doubts about the signal until maybe five years ago. Of course, I also realized that fighting global warming encourages us to do things we should be doing for other reasons, so it doesn't really matter all that much.)

[Ken Houghton]

"Take Krugman, for another example. Not the man himself. His place in collective progressive thought. Ever read any of his work in economics? Know why he was awarded a Nobel Prize? How much does that work have to do specifically with what he’s been writing in his Times’ columns and blog posts?"

Yes. Yes. Depends on whether you're treating the specific step that won the Swedish Lottery, his extensive work on Japan's ddeflation, or that those were both based on Macroeconomic foundations (yes, those do exist) that he uses rather frequently in his columns, most especially when talking about Europe and Deficit Hysteria.

I can barely tell you the difference between 3' and 5' DNA. But I know people who work where those differences matter--or where steps along the way to where they are--and they can define the next set of steps. And the information can be checked.

Reality-based. Not living in reality, but aware it exists.