‘A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.’ These are the opening words to When Prophecy Fails, a classic social psychology study, first published in 1956.
The authors infiltrated a movement that was led to believe that the world would come to an end at a precise moment. The researchers were interested in the impact on believers when the prophecy failed. They came across news reports that Mrs Marian Keech (a pseudonym adopted in the book) had received messages from the ‘Elder Brother’ and other non-terrestrial sources. A gigantic flood would happen before dawn on December 21, 1954. Believers would be saved by a UFO. Anticipating this occurrence, some of her followers prepared for the apocalypse by giving up their jobs and disposing of their worldly possessions.
The impact of the inevitable failed prophecy varied. Some people peeled away from the sect but others swallowed a series of spurious, disingenuous inventions to keep them faithful. The authors concluded that believers presented with irrefutable disconfirmatory evidence are frequently left with a conviction ‘not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth’ of their beliefs. Abandoning a deeply held conviction is neither easy, nor comfortable.
Political faith and facts
Examples abound in politics. The mounting evidence of an environmental crisis was challenged by many who purported to offer alternative evidence. It now seems absurd that anyone would ever claim that smoking was good for you or deny that smoking caused cancer or heart disease but tobacco companies insisted that the evidence was inconclusive. And we now see the same with vaping.
Former Energy Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson’s 2009 book – notably entitled An Appeal to Reason: a cool look at global warming – sought to turn criticism on its head. But it was more his skills as a journalist that were on display than any other expertise in a book that should now embarrass Lawson. In this case it was less faith than interests that no doubt lay behind the polemic. Hard line Brexiteers will always find reason to explain away evidence of the failures of leaving the EU.
Abuse often replaces reason when reason challenges a deeply held belief. Nicola Sturgeon’s supporters became no less convinced of an imminent vote on independence even as evidence mounted that she was taking them on a merry march up and down a referendum hill. Patrick Harvie’s infamous reply on the Cass Review that he had ‘seen far too many criticisms’ might have been fine if he had provided contradictory evidence from credible sources. But blind faith is more powerful than any amount of scientific evidence.
Having beliefs, an ideology or political convictions is not the problem. Values and beliefs are important and ever present. They guide decision making, provide direction and inspiration. The problem arises when dogma takes over. Scepticism is healthy though sadly scepticism is a term that was colonised in the EU membership debate by those who were the very antithesis of scepticism. Euro-scepticism in its proper sense is healthy – including in the EU-27. But Euro-scepticism UK-style became unthinking Euro-dogma, a belief system that permitted no room for doubt.
This is not to suggest that we should uncritically accept the evidence of experts. Without going anywhere near so far as abiding by Michael Gove’s injunction that this country ‘has had enough of experts’, it is fair to question and challenge experts. The source of any criticism is important.
A clash of ideas, conflicting evidence, and alternative understandings and expertise are the stuff of serious public policy. Even the smartest amongst us can get it wrong and the most brilliant can stray into areas beyond their expertise. As John Maynard Keynes famously said: ‘When the facts change, I change my mind – what do you do, sir?’ It is fine to explore evidence thrown up by some correlation but correlation is not causation. But to see what appears at first sight to be a causal relationship and stick with this when further study undermines it or throws up alternative explanations can be avoided by adopting a questioning or more sceptical attitude in the first place.
Blind men and the elephant
What philosopher Nathan Ballantyne referred to as ‘epistemic trespassing’ is all too common. An example cited by Ballantyne was the case of Linus Pauling: having won two Nobel prizes (for Chemistry in 1954 and Peace in 1962) he was assuredly a brilliant expert but he trespassed into a neighbouring area of expertise. Pauling maintained that large doses of ascorbic acid were effective in treating a range of conditions from the common cold to cancer. The medical establishment and much research were more than a little sceptical. It is not that ascorbic acid – better known as Vitamin C – is regarded as bad for you by medical profession, it just doesn’t cure cancer.
Over-reach is a problem. It should be good enough to claim something helps without having to claim it has super powers. Politicians want ‘solutions’ – especially ‘world leading’ ones – when what may be available are ‘good enough’ responses. If you are looking for utopia then best join Mrs Keech or some religious organisation rather than a political party.
But we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We should not discourage people moving out of comfort zones of expertise. Better still, we should heed Ballantyne’s advice: ‘we must trespass to answer most important questions.’ Moving into another area of competence can take time and effort. But trespassing intelligently points toward social solutions. Acknowledging, respecting and exploring the diversity of perspectives is important. We should remember the parable of the blind men and the elephant. All of them were required to describe accurately, let alone understand the elephant. As Frederick Schauer has noted, it is often said we live in an era of experts but in truth we live in an age of ‘duelling experts’. And as he noted, nonexpert reliance on expertise is as ‘irrevocably problematic as it is irrevocably necessary’.
Wicked problems – complex problems with complex causes that do not lend themselves to easy solutions – especially require a range of expertise. The response to wicked problems will often depend on which expertise is dominant. And crucially, real expertise is often overlooked. It exists in our communities – the phrase ‘lived experience’ may be over-used and all too often used by those without relevant lived experience. Few who have lived experience ever refer to themselves in that way but they need to be heard. So too do those who actually deliver services. Ministers deliver speeches but little else. Delivery is done by teachers, nurses and the range of public servants working in our communities.
Government knows best
Scottish policy making remains too top-down, centralised with bureaucrats at the centre assuming their expertise trumps all others. Disconfirmatory evidence that things are not working is often ignored. Believers find excuses, blame others while their support for their pet policy is, as in When Prophecy Fails, ‘not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth’ of their way.
Ministers might insist that if only local authorities were more efficient, focused, competent then progress would be made but wilfully ignore the cuts they imposed on local government and failure to listen to those much closer to delivery. Teacher-pupil ratios exemplify the problem. Of course, more teachers might help in closing the attainment gap but it is staggering how much evidence has been ignored on the complexities involved in progress on this front. Baby boxes help too but the question is whether or which policies should be applied uniformly and universally and the opportunity costs of policies should be given far more attention in policy making.
The choice of expert opinion is important. Our hyper-partisan polarised politics can lead to pigeon-holing designed to undermine expertise. Someone’s view is accepted or dismissed too readily in polarised politics depending on opinions on entirely separate matters. Doctors and dentists don’t get trained in nationalist or unionist medicine, though there are big debates and differences within these professions. Another concern heard increasingly is that ‘experts’ are often chosen to provide a suitable, even pre-ordained answer. Unfortunately, there are genuine experts as well as trespassers who are willing to sell their name for financial gain, access to power, or plain old ego trips.
Organisations and people who become dependent on state support for funding will be understandably wary of criticising the hand that feeds them. But we should be wary – not necessarily dismissive – of their advice. Selling your soul cannot be legislated against but a blend of scepticism and accountability helps. There is nothing wrong and much to be gained by scrutinising expert opinion delivered calmly and politely.
Marian Keech was an extreme case of someone with unthinking followers but there are faint echoes of the unthinking evidence-free dogma in our politics. We need more sceptical Scots and fewer Keeches.
Mr Keith Macdonald says
Wholeheartedly agree. How do we achieve this? Political change is coming to both Scotland and the UK with what I hope is the decline of nationalism. This has to represent an opportunity but those of us outside the leadership circles of Labour should try to encourage them to be more open and rational, despite the immense pressures on them, particularly UK Labour which is likely to face an extreme right-wing opponent with powerful media support in a country with many deep-seated problems.
Alex. Sinclair says
An interesting and thought provoking article. I would however ask you to reflect whether you also exhibit the problem that you are addressing, as set out in the first paragraph. Thus I would be very surprised if Nigel Lawson had changed his views on global warming and he could quite reasonably point to the fact that the Arctic ice did not disappear, despite the claims of many experts that the Arctic would be ice free in summer by now. Similarly your reference to “hard line Brexiteers” suggests a politically entrenched position.