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DOUBLE_BACKFIRE
November 11, 2018
From THE_STORY_OF_STORIES
The "backfire effect" is well-known
at this point-- facts don't persuade
they just make people dig-in--
what's less well-known is the
original discoverers have backed
off from this, and found some From the dailykos, January 08, 2018:
evidence that stating the facts is
a decent persuasive technique. "Even the frequently-cited original
findings were relatively marginal--
there was a signal, but not a big
one. It was worth taking the backfire
effect into account, but it wasn't
near as big a deal as complaints about
Snopes debunkings might have made it
seem."
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/1/8/1730754/-Has-the-Backfire-Effect-of-Debunkings-Been-Debunked
Daniel Engber, in Slate, on Jan 3, 2018:
https://slate.com/health-and-science/2018/01/weve-been-told-were-living-in-a-post-truth-age-dont-believe-it.html
"With an election looming in the fall of 2008,
Nyhan and Reifler's work went viral in the
media. (The final version of their paper would not
be published in an academic journal until 2010.)
Vedantam wrote up their findings for the Post, and
the story spread from there. It soon became the
go-to explanation for partisan
recalcitrance. 'Perception is reality. Facts don't
matter,' wrote Jonathan Chait in the New Republic ..."
"But there's a problem with these stories about the
end of facts. In the past few years, social
scientists armed with better research methods have
been revisiting some classic work on the science
of post-truth. Based on their results, the most
surprising and important revelations from this
research ... now seem overstated. It may be that
the internet does not divide us, that facts don't
make us dumber than we were before, and that
debunking doesn't really lead to further bunk."
"In fact, it may be time that we gave up on the truth-y
notion that we're living in a post-truth age. In fact,
it may be time that we debunked the whole idea."
"... The people in the study did give a bit more
credence to corrections that fit with their
beliefs; in those situations, the new information
led them to update their positions more
emphatically. But they never showed the effect
that made the Nyhan-Reifler paper famous: People's
views did not appear to boomerang against the
facts. Among the topics tested in the new
research-- including whether Saddam had been hiding
WMDs-- not one produced a backfire. 'We were mugged
by the evidence,' says Wood."
"... I asked Coppock: Might there be echo chambers
in academia, where scholars keep themselves away
from new ideas about the echo chamber? And what if
presenting evidence against the backfire effect
itself produced a sort of backfire? 'I really do
believe my finding,' Coppock said. 'I think other
people believe me, too.' But if his findings were
correct, then wouldn't all those peer reviewers
have updated their beliefs in support of his
conclusion? He paused for a moment. 'In a way,' he
said, 'the best evidence *against* our paper is
that it keeps getting rejected.'"
And indeed, it does seem that there are a lot of
people out there who seem weirdly reluctant to
get the word on this:
George Gantz, Sept 9, 2018
https://peacenews.org/2018/09/20/denialism-and-its-discontents-george-gantz/
"One thing is clear. Conventional debunking
does not work. The confrontation is actually
counterproductive in the face of denialist
thinking. It just feeds the cycle." Yes, the terrible cycle
of non-violent conflict.
Forget that crap.
Some people seem to be in Hulk smash.
love with the Brendan-Nyhan
"Backfire Effect"-- and
the idea of a "post-truth"
world.
You'd almost think they've
seized on it because it
justifies a deeply held Note though, that here I'm playing at "going
prior belief or something meta", reaching for the accusation that the
like that... people commenting on motivated reasoning are
themselves engaging in it.
A quick look around shows that there's
nothing particularly brilliant about this
move, it's a kind of cleverness everyone
comes up with.
It's everyone's first impulse, and it's
practically the only thing the research
in "motivated reasoning" has actually
achieved: there's no need to resort to
old-fashioned colloquialisms like
calling someone "pig-headed", now you
can go for psycho-babble about
"motivated reasoning", and "social
cognitive" and what-not.
Daniel Engber again:
"Why, then, has the end-of-facts idea
gained so much purchase in both
academia and the public mind? It
could be an example of what the World But is this confirming our
War II–era misinformation experts "deepest fears", or is there
referred to as a 'bogie' rumor-- a something reassuring about the
false belief that gives expression to idea that you don't need to do
our deepest fears and offers some any research because it won't
catharsis." help anyway?
Engber links to:
[link]
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