I've long thought that correcting misinformation (often called "debunking") helps enable human understanding. I think this is a principle which many bloggers believe in, to the point where it's often considered one of the basic advantages of the blogosphere. As the theory goes, the more bloggers do this, the more "self correcting" the blogosphere becomes.
a series of new experiments show that misinformation can exercise a ghostly influence on people's minds after it has been debunked -- even among people who recognize it as misinformation. In some cases, correcting misinformation serves to increase the power of bad information.
In experiments conducted by political scientist John Bullock at Yale University, volunteers were given various items of political misinformation from real life. One group of volunteers was shown a transcript of an ad created by NARAL Pro-Choice America that accused John G. Roberts Jr., President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court at the time, of "supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber."
A variety of psychological experiments have shown that political misinformation primarily works by feeding into people's preexisting views. People who did not like Roberts to begin with, then, ought to have been most receptive to the damaging allegation, and this is exactly what Bullock found. Democrats were far more likely than Republicans to disapprove of Roberts after hearing the allegation.
Bullock then showed volunteers a refutation of the ad by abortion-rights supporters. He also told the volunteers that the advocacy group had withdrawn the ad. Although 56 percent of Democrats had originally disapproved of Roberts before hearing the misinformation, 80 percent of Democrats disapproved of the Supreme Court nominee afterward. Upon hearing the refutation, Democratic disapproval of Roberts dropped only to 72 percent.
Republican disapproval of Roberts rose after hearing the misinformation but vanished upon hearing the correct information. The damaging charge, in other words, continued to have an effect even after it was debunked among precisely those people predisposed to buy the bad information in the first place.
What that means is that when you're dealing with people who really want to believe something, and you show them it is not true, they'll believe it more firmly than ever.
Disconcerting, to say the least. But it might explain what it is that makes what we call the "hard core" hard and loyal to the core.
The Rathergate scandal stands out as an example of what I saw as the blogosphere doing its job. Dan Rather lost his job as a result, but he maintained his innocence, and he still has a core of devoted followers. The 9/11 Truthers are probably an extreme example of this phenomenon.
Speaking of "debunking," longtime readers may remember my role in debunking dishonest web site called "Capitol Hill Blue." At least, so I thought at an earlier point in my blogging career. As I was to learn (and as I explained here), there's no such thing as permanent debunking. At least, not to the loyal readers of Capitol Hill Blue:
Longtime readers may remember that I devoted a great deal of time to debunking that rather ridiculous "news site" run by Doug Thompson -- which featured fictitious characters like the disappearing "George Harleigh." I remember being foolish enough to think that because Capitol Hill Blue had been "discredited" that it would just go away. Not so. Capitol Hill Blue and Doug Thompson have a seemingly endless capactity for self reinvention -- which in turn is now forcing bloggers to reinvent the wheel doing what was supposedly done long ago. In "UPDATE 2: He's Baaack - More Lies, Hilarity & Hypocrisy from Doug Thompson & Capitol Hill Blue" and "One Man, Two Phantom Sources, a Few Fictional Friends, and Zero Credibility a very thorough blogger has painstakingly built yet another case against CHB and Thompson. I'm delighted to be cited as a source, but I wish it wasn't necessary for anyone to be doing this all over again -- especially in such painstaking detail.
I concluded with this question:
Is there any way to debunk anything so that it stays debunked?
According to this latest research, no.
I guess the rule is that if you're dealing with a true believer of any kind, forget it. If the study's conclusions are right, attempts to change his mind will only have the opposite effect of strengthening his position -- especially if you're using facts as opposed to opinions.
And of course, opposing opinions are also wasted on true believers, which most activists are.
I don't know how scientific the study is, but it would appear confirm something I have long suspected -- that arguments are generally a waste of time.
They might make things worse.
posted by Eric on 09.18.08 at 02:03 PM
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I don't know how scientific the study is, but it would appear confirm something I have long suspected -- that arguments are generally a waste of time.
Yeah, my experience, admittedly anecdotal, is that no one changes their mind in an argument. I cannot recall ever having seen it happen.
Tom · September 18, 2008 03:43 PM
"Is there any way to debunk anything so that it stays debunked?"
Only when the believer pays some natural cost for believing lies. And even that's not foolproof.
We are made of poor stuff, aren't we? We understand logic but cannot make ourselves logical; understand goodness but cannot be good.
wow, you mean like falsely blaming the CRA for the sub-prime mortgage crisis?
The fault lies with the small army of hard left political hustlers who spent the early 1990s pushing risky mortgages on home lenders. And the fault lies especially with the legislators that gave them the power to do it.
As noted below, what a load of crap (which is the null hypothesis, or better, the exceptionally strong prior, whenever you see anything with byline on the article above). Here's Ezra Klein:
The new line we're hearing is that the financial meltdown was really the product of the Community Reinvestment Act, a piece of legislation from the late-70s that required federally-insured banks to lend throughout the areas from which they take deposits, including poor neighborhoods, which were being systematically excluded from credit. The legislation, by all accounts, worked. Now, however, conservatives are trying to argue that it's behind the crisis: If the CRA hadn't been pushing these banks to make all these unsafe loans, then the birds would still sing...
As Robert Gordon shows, however, this is crap. First, there's the timing. CRA came in 1977. The crisis came in 2007. Indeed, by 2004, the Bush administration had weakened the CRA -- and after that (though not, presumably, because of it), bubble lending really took off. Further, CRA only governs a certain class of federally insured banks. Problem is, half of the subprime loans came from mortgage companies with no CRA involvement at all. Another 25%-30% came from companies with very little CRA exposure. For those who left their abacus at home, that's 80% of the loans which were fully or largely outside CRA jurisdiction. More than that, the non-CRA mortgage firms made subprime loans at twice the rate of CRA-covered firms. Which basically leaves a stake in the heart of this particular theory. Indeed, until now, some conservatives have been moaning that no one is talking about the CRA part because it's so racially charged. Poppycock. It's just a false charge...
Ezra didn't cover the change in 1995, except indirectly by noting the timing of the crisis, but for completeness, here's Robert Gordon. He also covers why the merger argument is flawed:
In the mid-1990s, new CRA regulations and a wave of mergers led to a flurry of CRA activity, but, as noted by the New America Foundation's Ellen Seidman (and by Harvard's Joint Center), that activity "largely came to an end by 2001." In late 2004, the Bush administration announced plans to sharply weaken CRA regulations, pulling small and mid-sized banks out from under the law's toughest standards. Yet sub-prime lending continued, and even intensified -- at the very time when activity under CRA had slowed and the law had weakened...
The real agenda behind this shameless push to blame the CRA is evident.
"The real agenda behind this shameless push to blame the CRA is evident?"
Real agenda? What might that be?
I did not blame the CRA (which was revised several times, by the way), but the abandonment of standards. The problem is bad loans, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Whether they were issued by banks covered by the CRA is irrelevant. Loans in excess of 80% of FMV, or to persons with bad credit or insufficient income should never have been made -- whether by CRA-covered banks or otherwise.
If you really are serious about the question, pay close attention to the anthropomorphic global warming cult. The wheels have been coming off that bandwagon for over a year now, and their repsonse has been to ratchet up the shrill hysteria.
You could also look into the flying saucer people, among whom it is impossible to debunk any of their cherished myths. Demolish one, and they pull out another. Dmeolish it, and another one pops up. Keep going, and eventually they trot out - the first one you dmeolished, triumphantly asking "Well, what about THIS one, huh?"
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
I don't know how scientific the study is, but it would appear confirm something I have long suspected -- that arguments are generally a waste of time.
Yeah, my experience, admittedly anecdotal, is that no one changes their mind in an argument. I cannot recall ever having seen it happen.