tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/opinion-3995/articlesOpinion – The Conversation2021-05-27T12:06:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1588342021-05-27T12:06:40Z2021-05-27T12:06:40ZLocal newspapers can help reduce polarization with opinion pages that focus on local issues<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402435/original/file-20210524-21-14xhh37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4819%2C3613&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Opinion journalism can rile people up -- or it can bring them together.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/group-of-people-reading-one-newspaper-royalty-free-image/102759526?adppopup=true">momentimages/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re confused about opinion journalism and what it is, you’re not alone. Many Americans are. But even so, the editorials, opinion columns and letters to the editor that fill the op-ed pages could help bridge political divides in the U.S. and offer some help to struggling local news outlets.</p>
<p><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/225755/americans-news-bias-name-neutral-source.aspx">Two-thirds of Americans polled by Gallup in 2017 said</a> that the news media do not distinguish between fact and opinion, an increase from 42% in 1984. <a href="https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/confusion-about-whats-news-and-whats-opinion-is-a-big-problem-but-journalists-can-help-solve-it/">Only 43%</a> of people in another poll said that <a href="https://theconversation.com/journalists-believe-news-and-opinion-are-separate-but-readers-cant-tell-the-difference-140901">they can easily tell the difference between news and opinion online</a>. Half of Americans are unfamiliar with the stock opinion journalism term, “op-ed,” which is shorthand for an opinion column.</p>
<p>As the lines between opinion and news blur in many Americans’ minds, <a href="https://www.axios.com/media-trust-crisis-2bf0ec1c-00c0-4901-9069-e26b21c283a9.html">trust in media is falling</a>. Local news sources – daily newspapers and local television news programs – are seen as more <a href="https://knightfoundation.org/articles/local-news-is-more-trusted-than-national-news-but-that-could-change/">trusted, caring and unbiased</a> than national news sources, but even that trust is fraying.</p>
<p>Like nearly everything else in American politics, <a href="https://www.journalism.org/2020/01/24/u-s-media-polarization-and-the-2020-election-a-nation-divided/">trust in the media is polarized along party lines</a>: Democrats trust the media far more than Republicans do, and the most ideological members of each party have the most different ideas about media’s trustworthiness.</p>
<p>Given this confusion and disagreement, it might seem unlikely that opinion journalism could be a positive influence. But our research shows that it can.</p>
<p>We are <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RSOzvUAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholars</a> who study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BeWPCGEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">politics</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=AzPHmwYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">the media</a>. We have found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqy051">local newspapers</a> – and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/home-style-opinion">local opinion journalism</a> in particular – can bridge political divisions and attract more readers.</p>
<h2>Vibrant community forum</h2>
<p>Opinion journalism is not news reporting; it is distinguished by its stated point of view. It has three basic formats: editorials; opinion columns, or “op-eds”; and letters to the editor. </p>
<p>Editorials are written in the newspaper’s voice by the editorial board, often composed of editors, owners and community members. Op-eds are typically written by professional columnists or community leaders. Letters are written by regular readers.</p>
<p>Op-eds ensure that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/107769901008700204">perspectives from nonjournalists</a> appear in the newspaper, help the general public <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2008.00122.x">interpret major events</a> and can <a href="https://www.nowpublishers.com/article/Details/QJPS-16112">change readers’ minds</a> on the issues. The best op-ed pages operate almost like a town square, allowing readers to discuss and debate issues important both to their communities and beyond.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402440/original/file-20210524-15-6sxk37.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screenshot from Desert Sun newspaper column by editor Julie Makinen with the headline, 'The Desert Sun opinion pages are taking a summer vacation from national politics. You can help us!'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402440/original/file-20210524-15-6sxk37.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402440/original/file-20210524-15-6sxk37.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402440/original/file-20210524-15-6sxk37.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402440/original/file-20210524-15-6sxk37.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402440/original/file-20210524-15-6sxk37.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402440/original/file-20210524-15-6sxk37.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402440/original/file-20210524-15-6sxk37.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In June 2019, Desert Sun Editor Julie Makinen announced a big change for the newspaper’s opinion pages: no national politics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion/columnists/2021/03/31/desert-sun-opinion-page-study-shows-experiment-curbed-polarization/4826254001/">Desert Sun screenshot</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the economic crisis in local news is making it harder for the opinion page to realize its potential as a vibrant community forum. Falling revenues and diminished numbers of staff have forced local newspapers to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/10/08/in-print-newspapers-cut-opinion/">use more syndicated columnists from outside of the paper’s community</a> and whose work usually has a national focus. Some papers have cut the position of opinion editor completely. </p>
<p>Without a dedicated staffer to seek out community writers and edit their work, newspapers’ reliance on syndicated columns means more opinion columns focused on <a href="https://www.cjr.org/criticism/bret-stephens-op-ed-new-york-times-wall-street-journal.php">“right versus left” ideological conflicts</a> between the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqz039">two national political extremes</a>, not local issues.</p>
<h2>No more national politics?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/home-style-opinion/646C3D86BDCB2E370CEB0A5D51083171#fndtn-information">Our book</a> shows how doing the opposite – getting rid of national politics on the opinion page and reinvesting in local opinion content – can help newspapers attract readers and cool tensions in their community.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.desertsun.com/">The Desert Sun</a> of Palm Springs, California, <a href="https://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion/2019/06/07/desert-sun-opinion-pages-taking-break-national-politics-july-help-us/1369621001/">tried this for the month of July 2019</a>: no syndicated columns, no cartoons about national politics, no letters about then-President Donald Trump. </p>
<p>We measured the ways this experiment changed the material that was published and the attitudes of the people in the community.</p>
<p>It was a major shift. In June, the month prior to this change, half of The Desert Sun’s op-ed page was nationally syndicated columns, and one-third of all columns referenced Trump. In July, national syndication disappeared, as did all stories mentioning the president. California topics were the focus of less than half of all columns in June, but 96% focused on California in July. Mentions of the Democratic and Republican parties dropped by more than half, from 25% of all columns to 10%.</p>
<p>Local issues filled the page: Issues like artistic and cultural preservation, traffic and downtown development, and education and the environment got much more attention. The unique character of Palm Springs shone through, once given a chance.</p>
<p>We surveyed readers before and after The Desert Sun’s experiment, in Palm Springs and a different city, Ventura, whose local newspaper, the Ventura County Sun, didn’t change its opinion page. We wanted to see if the change in opinion journalism shifted how people think and feel about their political opponents.</p>
<p>Political polarization, which is when people feel far apart from the opposing party, slowed significantly in Palm Springs compared to Ventura among certain groups: </p>
<ul>
<li>Those who read the newspaper; </li>
<li>Those who know a lot about politics; and</li>
<li>People who participate most in politics.</li>
</ul>
<p>These groups are the people most likely to share their views and inform others, potentially spreading the newspaper’s influence into the broader community. Even if only a fraction of the community reads the newspaper regularly – The Desert Sun’s total circulation is just over 26,000 – a change like this could have larger spillover effects. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two boxing gloves that represent Red and Blue America, pushing against each other." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402441/original/file-20210524-15-tgyilu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402441/original/file-20210524-15-tgyilu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402441/original/file-20210524-15-tgyilu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402441/original/file-20210524-15-tgyilu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402441/original/file-20210524-15-tgyilu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=631&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402441/original/file-20210524-15-tgyilu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=631&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402441/original/file-20210524-15-tgyilu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=631&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When opinion pages concentrate on national, partisan politics, communities become polarized politically.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/cultural-wars-royalty-free-image/1254512635?adppopup=true">wildpixel/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Desert Sun’s readers enjoyed the change: Online readership of opinion pieces <a href="https://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion/columnists/2021/03/31/desert-sun-opinion-page-study-shows-experiment-curbed-polarization/4826254001/">nearly doubled in July</a>, and in reader surveys we fielded after the experiment, almost five times as many readers <a href="https://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion/2019/08/16/desert-sun-survey-readers-approve-local-news-only-editorial-page/2033233001/">said they approved as said they disapproved of the experiment</a>. The experiment helped the newspaper recruit more opinion writers, who then continued to write in the months that followed.</p>
<h2>Reinvesting in opinion</h2>
<p>Supporters of local news could follow the lessons of this research by raising money to pay for opinion editor positions and funding creative thinking like The Desert Sun’s experiment.</p>
<p>The alternative is that opinion pages will wither and cease to reflect their communities. A local-only opinion page won’t restore the economic model that supported newspapers in decades past, but our research shows it can bring back some readers and bridge some of the political divides that can drive American communities apart.</p>
<p>By keeping the focus local, the opinion page could play a small part in restoring trust and helping local newspapers survive these trying times.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158834/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The best op-ed pages operate like a town square, allowing readers to discuss and debate issues important to their communities and beyond. But many now focus on divisive national political issues.Johanna Dunaway, Associate Professor of Communication, Texas A&M UniversityJoshua P. Darr, Assistant Professor of Political Communication, Louisiana State University Matthew P. Hitt, Associate Professor of Political Science, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1491322020-11-09T13:14:37Z2020-11-09T13:14:37ZConservatives value personal stories more than liberals do when evaluating scientific evidence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367850/original/file-20201105-22-11gidpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=98%2C0%2C5892%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When science and anecdote share a podium, you must decide how to value each.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/director-of-the-national-institute-of-allergy-and-news-photo/1208907352">Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Conservatives tend to see expert evidence and personal experience as more equally legitimate than liberals, who put a lot more weight on the scientific perspective, according to our new study <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12706">published in the journal Political Psychology</a>.</p>
<p>Our findings add nuance to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-conservatives.html">a common claim</a> that conservatives want to hear “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/aug/04/both-sides-of-the-climate-change-debate-how-bad-we-think-it-is-and-how-bad-it-really-is">both sides</a>” of arguments, even for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/us/politicized-scholars-put-evolution-on-the-defensive.html">settled science</a> that’s not really up for debate. </p>
<p>We asked 913 American adults to read an excerpt from an article debunking a common misconception, such as the existence of “lucky streaks” in games of chance. The article quoted a scientist explaining why people hold the misconception – for instance, people tend to see patterns in random data. The article also included a dissenting voice that drew from personal experience – such as someone claiming to have seen lucky streaks firsthand.</p>
<p>Our participants read one of two versions of the article. One version presented the dissenting voice as a quote from someone with relevant professional experience but no scientific expertise, such as a casino manager. In the other version, the dissenting opinion was a comment at the bottom from a random previous participant in our study who also disagreed with the scientist but had no clearly relevant expertise – analogous to a random poster in the comment section of an online article. </p>
<p>Though both liberals and conservatives tended to see the researcher as more legitimate overall, conservatives see less of a difference in legitimacy between the expert and the dissenter.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Looking at both our studies together, while about three-quarters of liberals rated the researcher as more legitimate, just over half of conservatives did. Additionally, about two-thirds of those who favored the anecdotal voice were conservative. Our data also showed that conservatives’ tendency to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.011">trust their intuitions</a> accounted for the ideological split.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1547">Other studies</a> of a scientific ideological divide have focused on politicized issues like climate change, where conservatives, who are more likely to oppose regulation, may believe they have something to lose if policies to curb climate change are implemented. By using apolitical topics in our studies, we’ve shown that science denial isn’t just a matter of self-interest.</p>
<p>In stripping away political interest, we have revealed something more basic about how conservatives and liberals differ in the ways they interact with evidence. Conservatives are more likely to see intuitive, direct experience as legitimate. Scientific evidence, then, may become just another viewpoint. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="two women talking and walking on the sidewalk, one with a mask on" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For some people, a personal anecdote can be as influential as a science-backed public message.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-holds-her-mask-while-talking-to-a-woman-wearing-a-news-photo/1254914571">Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Though we conducted these studies in 2018 before the pandemic, they help explain some of the ideological reactions to it in the U.S.</p>
<p>Among conservatives especially, the idea that the pandemic itself is <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/03/18/u-s-public-sees-multiple-threats-from-the-coronavirus-and-concerns-are-growing/">not a major threat</a> can hold as long as there’s personal evidence on offer that supports that view. President Donald Trump’s recovery from COVID-19 and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/06/trump-says-dont-be-afraid-of-covid-thats-easy-for-him-to-say">his assertion</a> based on his own experience that the disease is not so bad would have bolstered this belief. Recommendations from researchers to wear masks can remain mere suggestions so long as the court of public opinion is still undecided.</p>
<h2>What other research is being done</h2>
<p>Social scientists are already documenting ideological reactions to the pandemic that fit our findings. For example, many conservatives see the coronavirus as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620940539">less of a threat and are more susceptible to misinformation</a>. They also tend to see <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/711834">preventive efforts as less effective</a>. Our studies suggest these views will continue to proliferate as long as anecdotal experience conflicts with scientific expertise.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>An individual’s understanding of scientific evidence depends on more than just his or her political ideology. Basic science literacy also plays a role.</p>
<p>The pandemic has forced people to confront how hard it is to understand the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/tell-me-what-to-do-please-even-experts-struggle-with-coronavirus-unknowns/2020/05/25/e11f9870-9d08-11ea-ad09-8da7ec214672_story.html">uncertainty inherent in many scientific estimates</a>. Even liberals who are initially more sympathetic to science information might find their confidence in public health messages tested if these messages waver and evolve. </p>
<p>As such, we expect future research will focus on how health officials can most effectively <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.181870">communicate scientific uncertainty</a> to the public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149132/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How much weight would you put on a scientist’s expertise versus the opinion of a random stranger? People on either end of the political spectrum decide differently what seems true.Randy Stein, Assistant Professor of Marketing, California State Polytechnic University, PomonaAlexander Swan, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Eureka CollegeMichelle Sarraf, Master's Student in Economics, California State Polytechnic University, PomonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1429522020-07-20T11:39:29Z2020-07-20T11:39:29ZCutbacks at The Guardian: features are expensive but vital to journalism<p>There’s an old saying in journalism that readers might come for the news but they stay for the features.</p>
<p>In other words, you may have grabbed ‘em with the headlines – the “shock and the amaze on every page” stuff – but you win their hearts with the detail. The stories. The emotion. The stuff that stayed with you, perhaps, long after your paper went in the recycling bin.</p>
<p>Because good journalism is not just, as the news writers would have you believe, the “what”, “where”, “who” and “when”. That’s important. Of course it is. But what stays with you is the “why” and the “how”. That’s the essence of good feature writing and we seem to be in danger, in a generation or so, of losing it in our national and regional press. At a time when we arguably need it most.</p>
<p>The problem is that the accountants – the people who my old dad used to say knew the bloody price of everything but the value of nothing – are coming for the features. This is a well-trodden path in the grim world of newspaper cutbacks. </p>
<p>Features desks at the regional press have already been decimated as publishers like <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Reach+PLC+cuts&rlz=1C5CHFA_enGB778GB783&oq=Reach+PLC+cuts+&aqs=chrome..69i57j33.5478j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">Reach plc</a> (formerly Trinity Mirror), <a href="https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2020/news/newsquest-job-cuts-plan-revealed/">Newsquest</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-40727424">Johnston Press</a> have slashed costs to survive. There are all sorts of reasons for this, including the economically crippling drift online, the loss of advertisers and an audience now accustomed to getting its news for free. </p>
<p>And now it’s happening at the nationals. The Guardian has announced it will <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jul/15/guardian-announces-plans-to-cut-180-jobs">cut 180 jobs</a>, which is 12% of its workforce. The Saturday paper – The Guardian’s best selling of the week, brimming with brilliantly told features and opinion – will bear the lion’s share.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CCv-a96ABbp","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>It’s all about money</h2>
<p>Saturday is by far the <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/guardian-saturday-edition-set-to-bear-brunt-of-cost-cuts-despite-being-biggest-sale-of-the-week/">biggest day of the week for print sales</a> for The Guardian, with a circulation 130% higher than on weekdays. A spokesperson for the paper said there were “exciting plans” for a new Saturday supplement, which would cover features, culture, books and lifestyle journalism.</p>
<p>I wonder if there is a world where multi-million-pound budget cuts and job losses lead to a better product? I don’t know of one. It’s certainly not journalism. So why go for the features? Why go for a paper’s soul, its beating heart, what it is known and highly regarded for? </p>
<p>Because of the money. A feature is a longer piece of writing. It is the news behind the news, perhaps, a patchwork quilt of people and views and emotions that cuts through the long grass of an issue and presents the reader with a neatly bundled editorial package that provides genuine insight. The news gives you the information. The feature tells you why it matters. It’s the meat on the bones.</p>
<p>If you’re thinking, “Aw, I really liked those five-page long reads, The Guide, Weekend, Review, the stuff I could pore over …”, then stop right there. Take a step back and think about what it takes to make them.</p>
<p>Features take time to produce. Great features are more detailed – involving, at times, many long interviews. They demand more space on the page and more words. They sometimes require expensive photoshoots or artwork to illustrate them. </p>
<p>Take, for instance, the recent <a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/michaela-coel-i-may-destroy-you.html?utm_source=tw&utm_medium=s1&utm_campaign=nym">New York Magazine profile</a> of the writer of the hit BBC comedy drama I May Destroy You, Michaela Coel. The piece was shared across social media, and praised for its insight, the quality of the writing and its presentation of Coel. It took writer E Alex Jung and Coel 14 hours of interviews, disregarding the time it took to write and for the photos to be taken, to be produced. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1280573639902007296"}"></div></p>
<h2>A balanced diet</h2>
<p>I was a feature writer for nearly 20 years. I wrote for my local paper, the Leicester Mercury. I was a man of little ambition. I was happy to write for the paper where I lived, the paper my mum and dad always bought and the one I delivered as a lad.</p>
<p>I was made redundant in 2016. The editor who gave us the heave-ho said they no longer wanted stories of more than 500 words. I’d won <a href="https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/spiked-column-by-sacked-star-writer-on-the-leicester-mercury-railed-against-risible-standard-of-clickbait-online-journalism/">Feature Writer of the Year the week before</a>. The Mercury’s features department – one of the best in regional journalism – was razed to the ground in this brave new feature-less world. It’s a familiar story, told over and over again in most newsrooms.</p>
<p>But has it worked? I’m not sure it has. It’s saved them money, sure. But at what cost? And was it a price worth paying? </p>
<p>A diet of news alone is not enough to grapple with the complexities and nuances of what is happening around the world. There is real value in features. The figures for the Saturday Guardian show that. </p>
<p>I hope that journalism – for all of its obvious faults – can find a route through this morass, a solution that can preserve the future of long-form feature writing. Because it does have a future. Readers still want long-form, detailed, absorbing writing. They want features. They know their value.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142952/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee Marlow has been a member of the National Union of Journalists for more than 10 years. </span></em></p>The leading voice of the UK centrist left has announced that it shall be cutting its Saturday supplements in a bid to cut costs.Lee Marlow, Journalism Lecturer, De Montfort UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1423772020-07-10T04:44:05Z2020-07-10T04:44:05ZIs cancel culture silencing open debate? There are risks to shutting down opinions we disagree with<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346778/original/file-20200710-26-gvnank.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=245%2C3%2C1490%2C1011&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this week, 150 high-profile authors, commentators and scholars <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-09/jk-rowling-signs-letter-warning-over-free-speech-after-trans-row/12437436">signed</a> an <a href="https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/">open letter</a> in Harper’s magazine claiming that “open debate and toleration of differences” are under attack. Signatories included JK Rowling, Margaret Atwood, Gloria Steinem and Noam Chomsky.</p>
<p>While prefacing their comments with support for current racial and social justice movements, the signatories argue there has been a weakening of the norms of open debate in favour of dogma, coercion and ideological conformity. They perceive</p>
<blockquote>
<p>an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Sackings, investigations and withdrawn words</h2>
<p>The letter’s signing by Rowling comes in the wake of widespread backlash against her <a href="https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/">controversial comments</a> on transgender issues and womanhood. </p>
<p>Actor Daniel Radcliffe (“Harry Potter” himself) <a href="https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk-rowling-transgender-comments-controversy">joined a chorus of disapproval</a> of her comments, arguing they erased “the identity and dignity of transgender people”. Employees at Rowling’s publisher subsequently <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8424029/JK-Rowling-publishers-revolt-Workers-publishing-house-Hachette-threaten-tools.html">refused to work on her forthcoming book</a>.</p>
<p>The Harper’s letter invoked similar <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/arts/harpers-letter.html">cases</a> of what it saw as punitive overreactions to unpopular views, suggesting they formed part of a larger trend: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The reference to editors being fired is perhaps the most well-known recent incident. Last month, the New York Times published an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html">opinion piece</a> by Republican Senator Tom Cotton calling for the military to provide an “overwhelming show of force” to restore order in US cities during the protests over the killing of George Floyd.</p>
<p>The piece’s publication attracted <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-publishing-tom-cotton-the-new-york-times-has-made-a-terrible-error-of-judgment-140065">immediate criticism</a> for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/business/tom-cotton-op-ed.html?searchResultPosition=3">promoting hate</a> and putting black journalists in danger. In response, the editorial page editor <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/opinion/tom-cotton-op-ed.html?searchResultPosition=2">emphasised</a> the newspaper’s longstanding commitment to open debate, arguing the public would be better equipped to push back against the senator’s stance if it heard his views. </p>
<p>This defence failed, and within days he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/business/media/james-bennet-resigns-nytimes-op-ed.html">resigned</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-publishing-tom-cotton-the-new-york-times-has-made-a-terrible-error-of-judgment-140065">In publishing Tom Cotton, the New York Times has made a terrible error of judgment</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Push-back against push-back</h2>
<p>Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Harper’s letter has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/08/jk-rowling-rushdie-and-atwood-warn-against-intolerance-in-open-letter">received spirited critique</a>. Some commentators noted past cases where the signatories had themselves been censorious. Others argued that any <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/arts/harpers-letter.html">perceived threat was overblown</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1280960821498204163"}"></div></p>
<p>Indeed, the link the open letter makes between a repressive government and an intolerant society may seem a long bow to draw. There is a world of difference between the legal prohibition of speech and a wave of collective outrage on Twitter.</p>
<p>Yet, it is nevertheless worth considering whether important ethical outcomes are threatened in a culture of outrage, de-platforming and cancelling.</p>
<h2>Some speech requires consequences, but which speech?</h2>
<p>Almost everyone would agree some types of speech are beyond the pale. Racial slurs don’t deserve careful consideration. They require “calling out”, social censure and efforts at minimising harm.</p>
<p>Rather than objecting to outrage <em>per se</em>, the Harper’s letter asserts there is a broadening in the scope of views that attract punitive responses. This seems plausible. In recent <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10892-019-09308-z?wt_mc=Internal.Event.1.SEM.ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst">scholarly work</a> on the tensions between censorship and academic freedom on university campuses, <em>both sides</em> of the dispute acknowledge that in the current environment virtually all utterances offend someone.</p>
<p>Yet, perhaps there are good reasons for this broadening of scope. In each of the cases raised in the letter, there were seemingly sensible reasons for applying social sanctions. These included judgements that:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the speech was morally wrongful</p></li>
<li><p>the speech was gravely offensive</p></li>
<li><p>the speech would have seriously worrying consequences. It was “unhelpful”, “harmful”, “damaging” or “divisive”.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>For someone who is genuinely concerned that speech is wrong in these ways, it will seem not just morally permissible to take action against the speaker. It will feel obligatory.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-youre-not-entitled-to-your-opinion-9978">No, you're not entitled to your opinion</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Caution about consequences</h2>
<p>But several concerns arise when we attach punitive consequences to people’s speech based on its perceived moral wrongfulness (as opposed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/actually-its-ok-to-disagree-here-are-5-ways-we-can-argue-better-121178">simply arguing it is mistaken or false</a>).</p>
<p>First, claims of moral wrongfulness in a debate assume immediate urgency and distract from the debate itself. For example, let’s say in a debate about immigration, one person says something that offends another. Discussion of the original issue (immigration) will be bracketed until the issue of moral wrongdoing (the perceived slight or offence) is resolved. </p>
<p>Second (except in obvious cases), claims about wrongfulness, offensiveness and harmfulness are all open to debate. As philosopher John Stuart Mill <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm">once observed</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The usefulness of an opinion is itself a matter of opinion: as disputable, as open to discussion, and requiring discussion as much, as the opinion itself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Third, allegations of wrongdoing create <em>heat</em>. Few people respond constructively to allegations of wrongdoing. They often retaliate in kind, escalating the conflict.</p>
<p>In a less politicised environment, a contentious claim might be treated as a contribution to a debate to be considered on its merits. But in our current climate, the same claim creates only angry allegations flying in both directions. As a result, the claim isn’t considered or debated.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1281417562174001152"}"></div></p>
<h2>Should this worry us?</h2>
<p>If we think a person’s view is wrong and immoral, we might suppose there is no great loss about a debate being derailed. But there are genuine ethical concerns here.</p>
<p>First, <a href="https://news.griffith.edu.au/2019/09/09/the-threats-and-promises-of-multidimensional-legitimacy/">public deliberation is a source of legitimacy</a>. The fact that different views are widely heard and inclusively considered provides a reason for accepting collective decisions. </p>
<p><a href="https://jackmillercenter.org/cd-resources/alexander-meiklejohn-free-speech-relation-self-government/">Democracy itself</a> assumes citizens can hear different arguments, evidence and perspectives. If significant parts of the political spectrum are no longer tolerated, then social institutions lose this important type of legitimacy.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/actually-its-ok-to-disagree-here-are-5-ways-we-can-argue-better-121178">Actually, it's OK to disagree. Here are 5 ways we can argue better</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Second, listening to others with different opinions, and engaging with them, can help us understand their views and develop <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2001-00918-006">more informed versions of our own positions</a>. </p>
<p>On the flip side, being consistently outraged by opposing viewpoints provides a ready reason not to consider them. This feeds directly into <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/science-choice/201504/what-is-confirmation-bias">confirmation bias</a> and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/groupthink">group-think</a>.</p>
<p>Third, shaming people can cause a “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093650214548575">persuasive boomerang</a>” to occur.
When people feel others are trying to control them, they can become even more attached to the view others are trying to combat.</p>
<p>None of these concerns categorically rule out attaching punishing consequences to hateful or harmful speech. But they do imply the open letter has a point worth serious attention. Seeing mistaken views as intolerable speech carries genuine ethical costs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142377/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hugh Breakey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Yes, it is important to censure harmful and offensive speech. But there are ethical costs to widening the scope of our moral outrage to viewpoints that merely differ from our own.Hugh Breakey, President, Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics. Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre., Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1409012020-06-22T12:17:38Z2020-06-22T12:17:38ZJournalists believe news and opinion are separate, but readers can’t tell the difference<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342803/original/file-20200618-41238-19j01o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Readers don't always know how to distinguish fact from opinion.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/gatehouse-media-owned-palm-beach-post-and-the-gannett-co-news-photo/1166289246?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The New York Times opinion editor James Bennet resigned recently after the paper published <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html">a controversial opinion essay</a> by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton that advocated using the military to put down protests. </p>
<p>The essay sparked outrage among the public as well as among younger reporters at the paper. Many of those staffers participated in <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/06/this-puts-black-people-in-danger-new-york-times-staffers-band-together-to-protest-tom-cottons-anti-protest-editorial/">a social media campaign</a> aimed at the paper’s leadership, asking for factual corrections and an editor’s note explaining what was wrong with the essay.</p>
<p>Eventually, the staff uprising forced <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/business/media/james-bennet-resigns-nytimes-op-ed.html">Bennet’s departure</a>. </p>
<p>Cotton’s column was published on the opinion pages – not the news pages. But that’s a distinction often lost on the public, whose criticisms during the recent incident were often directed <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonFarmer15/status/1269729759946330113?s=20">at the paper as a whole</a>, including its news coverage. All of which raises a longstanding question: What’s the difference between the news and opinion side of a news organization? </p>
<p>It is a tenet of American journalism that reporters working for the news sections of newspapers remain entirely independent of the opinion sections. But the <a href="https://newslit.org/get-smart/did-you-know-news-opinion/">divide between news and opinion is not as clear to many readers</a> as journalists believe that it is. </p>
<p>And because American news consumers have become accustomed to the ideal of objectivity in news, the idea that opinions bleed into the news report potentially leads readers to suspect that reporters have a political agenda, which damages their credibility, and that of their news organizations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The op-ed column by Sen. Tom Cotton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html">New York Times screenshot</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How news and opinion grew apart</h2>
<p>Long before newspapers became institutions for collecting and distributing news, they were instruments for the personal expression of individuals – their owners. There was little thought given to whether or not opinion and fact were intermingled. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.benjamin-franklin-history.org/pennsylvania-gazette/#:%7E:text=Pennsylvania%20Gazette,Pennsylvania%20Gazette%20from%20Samuel%20Keimer.">Benjamin Franklin ran the Pennsylvania Gazette</a> from 1729 to 1748 as a vehicle for his own political and scientific ideas and even just his day-to-day observations. The <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030483/">Gazette of the United States</a>, first published in 1789, was the most prominent Federalist paper of its time and was funded in part by Alexander Hamilton, whose letters and essays it published anonymously.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Front page of the inaugural issue of the Gazette of the United States, from April 15, 1789.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030483/1789-04-15/ed-1/seq-1/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the early 19th century, newspapers were <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2013/07/16/from-tom-paine-to-glenn-greenwald-we-need-partisan-journalism/">often nakedly partisan</a>, since many of them were funded by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/party-press-era">political parties</a>. </p>
<p>Over the course of the 19th century, though, newspapers began to seek a popular audience. As they grew in circulation, some began to emphasize their independence from faction. </p>
<p>Coupled with the rise of journalism schools and press organizations, this independence enshrined “fact” and “truth” as what scholar Barbie Zelizer calls <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1479142042000180953">“God-terms” of journalism</a> by the early 20th century.</p>
<p>Newspaper owners never wanted to give up their influence on public opinion, however. As news became the main product of the newspaper, publishers established editorial pages, where they could continue to endorse their favorite politicians or push for pet causes. </p>
<p>These pages are <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/about-the-times-editorial-board">typically run by editorial boards</a>, which are staffs of writers, often with individual areas of expertise (economics or foreign policy or, in smaller papers, state politics), who draft editorial essays. They are then voted on by the board, which usually includes the publisher. They’re then published, usually with no author attribution, as the official opinions of the newspaper. There are variations on this process: Often the editorial board will decide on topics and the paper’s opinion before these writers get to work on their drafts.</p>
<p>James Bennet, The New York Times opinion editor who resigned, acknowledged in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/reader-center/editorial-board-explainer.html">an article on the paper’s website</a> that was published in January 2020, months before the Cotton essay, that “the role of the editorial board can be confusing, particularly to readers who don’t know The Times well.”</p>
<p>Through most the 20th century, newspapers reassured their readers and their reporters that there was a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3118032">“wall” between the news and opinion sides</a> of their operations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unbiased journalism is a relatively new phenomenon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-walk-by-the-front-of-the-new-york-times-building-on-news-photo/1027689402?adppopup=true">Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Publishers relied on this idea of separation to insist that their news reporting was fair and independent, and they believed that readers understood that separation.</p>
<p>This is a particularly American way of operating. Readers in <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2015/04/28/our-partisan-press-does-it-matter-to-journalism-or-politics/">other countries</a> usually expect their newspapers to have a point of view, representing a particular party or ideology.</p>
<h2>The creation of the op-ed page</h2>
<p>One way that newspapers found to allow a greater range of opinion in its pages was to create an op-ed page, which publishes opinions by individuals, not those of the editorial board. As journalism historian <a href="https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=cmj_facpub">Michael Socolow recounts</a>, John Oakes, the editorial page editor of The New York Times in 1970, created the first op-ed page because, he felt, “a newspaper most effectively fulfills its social and civic responsibilities by challenging authority, acting independently, and inviting dissent.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.seattletimescompany.com/editorial/howtoread.htm">“Op-ed” is short for “opposite the editorial page,”</a> not “opinion and editorial” or opinions that are opposite from those of the editorial page. Literally, the name comes from the fact that it was located across from – opposite – the editorial page in the print newspaper.</p>
<p>The op-ed page of a print newspaper typically includes the newspaper’s opinion columnists. These are employees of the paper who write regularly. The paper also usually publishes a selection of opinion pieces from outside writers. Newspapers around the country emulated the Times after the op-ed page debuted.</p>
<h2>Online opinions, changing norms and blurred lines</h2>
<p>With the expansion of opinion pages online, the Times was <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-york-times-publisher-ag-sulzberger-laments-loss-of-a-talent-like-james-bennet">publishing 120 opinion pieces a week</a> at the time of James Bennet’s resignation.</p>
<p>While the move online allows The New York Times op-ed page to vastly increase its output, it also creates a problem: Opinion stories <a href="https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2017/news-or-opinion-online-its-hard-to-tell/">no longer look clearly different</a> from news stories. </p>
<p>With many readers coming to news sites from social media links, they may not pay attention to the subtle clues that mark a story published by the opinion staff. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Washington Post homepage on June 19, 2020. Opinions at top right; reporting to the left.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/?reload=true">Screenshot</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Add to this the fact that even readers who go to a paper’s homepage are met with news and opinion stories displayed graphically at the same level, connoting the same level of importance. And reporters share analysis and opinion on Twitter, further confusing readers. </p>
<p>The news sections of the paper also increasingly run <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/opinion/13pubed.html">stories that contain a level of news analysis</a> that casual readers might not be able to distinguish from what The New York Times designates as opinion.</p>
<p>In 1970, when the op-ed page debuted in The New York Times, <a href="http://media-cmi.com/downloads/Sixty_Years_Daily_Newspaper_Circulation_Trends_050611.pdf">daily newspaper circulation was equivalent to 98% of U.S. households</a>. By 2010, that number had dropped below 40% and has continued to dip since then.</p>
<p>Even if readers in 1970 could clearly differentiate between news and opinion, they likely do not have the same level of critical engagement when news exists online and in almost unmanageable volume. </p>
<p>If news organizations such as The New York Times continue to maintain that a robust opinion section, separate from their news reports, serves to further the public conversation, then those institutions will need to do a better job of explaining to news consumers where – or if – the “wall” between news and opinion exists.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140901/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin M. Lerner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is a tenet of American journalism that reporters working for the news sections of newspapers remain entirely independent of the opinion sections. But that wall may be invisible to readers.Kevin M. Lerner, Assistant Professor of Journalism, Marist CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1195972019-07-02T19:45:43Z2019-07-02T19:45:43ZFreedom of speech: a history from the forbidden fruit to Facebook<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282147/original/file-20190702-105182-1gchrfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=598%2C0%2C3059%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Humans have always sought knowledge, all the way back to Eve.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This essay is part of a series of articles on <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/the-future-of-education-72196">the future of education</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Free speech is in the news. Not least because several leading universities have adopted a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/dan-tehan-wants-a-model-code-on-free-speech-at-universities-what-is-it-and-do-unis-need-it-119163">model code</a>” to protect it on campus. And then there’s the Israel Folau saga, and <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/israel-folau-it-may-be-free-speech-but-it-is-also-hate-speech-20190624-h1fn6v.html">debate over</a> whether his Instagram post was free speech, or just hate speech.</p>
<p>If the Bible is to be believed, humans have sought knowledge since <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A4-3%3A24&version=NIV">Eve</a>. They have been disagreeing since <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%204">Cain and Abel</a>. From long before kings, people have been subject to rulers with a vested interest in controlling what was said and done.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1143044067082690562"}"></div></p>
<p>Humans have always had a need to ask big questions and their freedom to ask them has often pushed against orthodoxies. Big questions make many people uneasy. Socrates, killed by the Athenians for corrupting the youth <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/apology.htm">in 399 BCE</a>, is only the most iconic example of what can happen when politics and piety combine against intellectuals who ask too many questions. </p>
<p>Or questions of the wrong kind.</p>
<p>In all this, there’s an implicit idea we understand the basic meaning of “free speech”, and we are all entitled to it. But what does it really mean, and how entitled are we?</p>
<h2>Where does it come from?</h2>
<p>The Ancient Greek <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/cynics">Cynics</a> – who valued a simple life, close to nature – valorised “parrhesia” or frank speech as an ethical, not a legal thing. Ancient polytheism (the belief in many gods) made the idea of religious intolerance <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/voltaire-toleration-and-other-essays">unheard of</a>, outside of condemning the odd philosopher. </p>
<p>But it was only in the 17th and 18th centuries that arguments for religious tolerance and the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Toleration-Conflict-Present-Ideas-Context/dp/0521885779">freedoms of conscience and speech</a> took the forms we now take for granted. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-free-speech-64797">Explainer: what is free speech?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Protestantism">Protestantism</a>, which began in Europe in the early 16th century, challenged the authority of the Catholic Church and its priests to interpret the Bible. Protestants appealed to individuals’ consciences and championed the translation of the Holy Book into the languages of ordinary people. </p>
<p>Protestant thinker <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/A-Letter-Concerning-Toleration">John Locke</a> argued, in 1689, that no person can compel another’s God-given conscience. Therefore, all attempts to do this should be forbidden. </p>
<p>At the same time, philosophers began to challenge the limits of human knowledge concerning God, immortality and the mysteries of faith. </p>
<p>People who claim the right to persecute others believe they know the truth. But the continuing disagreements between different religious sects <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-old-ideas-about-tolerance-can-help-us-live-more-peacefully-today-114082">speaks against</a> the idea God has delivered his truth uniquely and unambiguously to any one group. </p>
<p>We are condemned by the limits of our knowledge to learn to tolerate our differences. But not at any cost.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282138/original/file-20190702-105164-wtah9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282138/original/file-20190702-105164-wtah9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282138/original/file-20190702-105164-wtah9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282138/original/file-20190702-105164-wtah9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282138/original/file-20190702-105164-wtah9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282138/original/file-20190702-105164-wtah9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282138/original/file-20190702-105164-wtah9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282138/original/file-20190702-105164-wtah9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We are condemned by the limits of our knowledge to learn to tolerate our differences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Defending freedom of conscience and speech is not an unlimited prospect. None of the great 18th century advocates of free speech, such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Voltaire">Voltaire</a>, accepted libel, slander, defamation, incitements to violence, treason or collusion with foreign powers, as anything other than crimes. </p>
<p>It was not intolerant to censor groups who expressed a wish to overthrow the constitution. Or those who would harm members of a population who committed no offences. It was not intolerant to sanction individuals who incite violence against members of other religious or racial groups, solely on grounds of their group identities.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-charlottesville-how-we-define-tolerance-becomes-a-key-question-83793">After Charlottesville, how we define tolerance becomes a key question</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>At stake in these limits of free speech is what 19th century philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill">John Stuart Mill</a> called the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_principle">harm principle</a>”. According to this idea, supposedly free speech that causes or incites harm to others is not truly “free” at all. </p>
<p>Such speech attacks the preconditions of civil debate, which requires a minimum of respect and safety for one’s opponents.</p>
<p>Mill also held that a good society should allow a diversity of views to be presented <a href="https://www.bartleby.com/130/2.html">without fear or favour</a>. A group in which unquestioned orthodoxy prevails may miss evidence, reason badly, and be unduly influenced by political pressures (making sure the “right” view is maintained). </p>
<p>A society should be able to check different views against each other, refute and rectify errors, and ideally achieve a more comprehensive and truer set of beliefs. </p>
<h2>Freedom of debate</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Free-Speech-Problems-Philosophy-Haworth/dp/0415148049">Critics</a> of Mill’s diversity ideal have said it mistakes society for a university seminar room. They contend politicians and academics have <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1967/02/25/truth-and-politics">a more qualified sense</a> of the value of seeking knowledge than impartial inquirers. </p>
<p>This criticism points to the special place of universities when it comes to concerns surrounding freedom of speech, past and present.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dan-tehan-wants-a-model-code-on-free-speech-at-universities-what-is-it-and-do-unis-need-it-119163">Dan Tehan wants a 'model code' on free speech at universities – what is it and do unis need it?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>When the great medieval universities were founded, they were established as autonomous <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Universities-Charles-Homer-Haskins/dp/0801490154">corporations</a>, as against private businesses or arms of public government.</p>
<p>If free inquiry to cultivate educated citizens was to flourish, the thought was, it must be <a href="https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/12069/Sharpe_Issue1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">insulated from the pressures</a> of economic and political life. If an intellectual is a paid spokesman of a company or government, they will have strong incentives to suppress inconvenient truths, present only parts of the evidence, and to attack opponents, not their arguments, so as to lead critics from the trail. </p>
<p>A large part of the medieval syllabus, especially in the Arts faculties, consisted of teaching students how to <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15151.html">question and debate</a> competing opinions. The medieval <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-literary/">summas</a> reflect this culture: a form of text where propositions were raised, counter-propositions considered and rebutted, and comprehensive syntheses sought.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282158/original/file-20190702-164980-1v4y46n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282158/original/file-20190702-164980-1v4y46n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282158/original/file-20190702-164980-1v4y46n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282158/original/file-20190702-164980-1v4y46n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282158/original/file-20190702-164980-1v4y46n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282158/original/file-20190702-164980-1v4y46n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282158/original/file-20190702-164980-1v4y46n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282158/original/file-20190702-164980-1v4y46n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students were taught to debate by putting forward an argument and addressing counter-arguments.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/E0rsKheWqmk">Jonathan Sharp/Unsplash</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>This is not to deny some counter-positions were beyond the pale. It served a person well to entertain them only as “the devil’s advocate”. </p>
<p>And at different times, certain propositions were condemned. For instance, the so called “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condemnations_of_1210%E2%80%931277">Condemnations</a>” of 1210-1277 at the medieval University of Paris, constrained a set of teachings considered heretical. These included teachings of Aristotle such as that human acts are not ruled by the providence of God and that there was never a first human.</p>
<p>At other times, books considered immoral by the Roman Catholic Church were burnt or put on the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Index-Librorum-Prohibitorum">Index</a> of prohibited works. And those that published such works, such as the 12th Century philosopher and poet Peter <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/abelard/">Abelard</a>, were imprisoned. </p>
<p>Such practices would survive well into the 18th century in Catholic France, when encyclopedist <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/diderot/">Denis Diderot</a> suffered a similar fate.</p>
<p>Early modern forms of scientific inquiry challenged the medieval paradigm. It was felt to <a href="https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/birth-of-the-modern-mind-the-intellectual-history-of-the-17th-and-18th-centuries.html">rely too much</a> on an established canon of authorities and so neglect peoples’ own experiences and capacities to reason on what these experiences revealed about the world.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-exactly-is-the-scientific-method-and-why-do-so-many-people-get-it-wrong-65117">What exactly is the scientific method and why do so many people get it wrong?</a>
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</em>
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<p>Philosopher <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/bacon/francis/b12a/index.html">Francis Bacon, sometimes known as the father of empiricism, argued</a> we cannot rely on the books of professors. New ways of asking questions and testing provisionally held hypotheses about the world should become decisive.</p>
<p>Since nature is so vast, and humans so limited, we would also need to inquire as part of a shared scientific culture, rather than placing our faith in individual geniuses. </p>
<p>Each inquirer would have to submit her results and conclusions to the scrutiny and testing of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Regimens-Mind-Modern-Cultura-Tradition/dp/0226116395">their peers</a>. Such dialogue alone could make sure anyone’s ideas were not the fancies of an isolated dreamer. </p>
<p>Without this form of freedom of inquiry, with active fostering of dissenting voices, there could be no sciences.</p>
<h2>Where are we now?</h2>
<p>People from different political camps agonise about the fate of free speech. Those on the right point to humanities departments, arguing an artificial, <a href="https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/">unrepresentative conformism</a> presides there. Those on the left have long pointed to economics and business departments, levelling similar accusations.</p>
<p>All the while, all departments are subject to the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-University-Governance-Reinvention-Australia/dp/052179448X">changing fate of universities</a> that have lost a good deal of their post-medieval independence from political and economic forces.</p>
<p>So, the situation is not as simple as the controversies make it.</p>
<p>On one hand, charges of ideological closure need to be balanced against the way a certain (already discovered) truth exerts what philosopher and political analyst <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1967/02/25/truth-and-politics">Hannah Arendt</a> termed a coercive value.</p>
<p>No one is intellectually “free”, in any real sense, to claim the earth is flat. Blind denial of overwhelming evidence, however inconvenient, is not an exercise of liberty.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-youre-not-entitled-to-your-opinion-9978">No, you're not entitled to your opinion</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>On the other hand, in more behavioural disciplines like politics, there is no one truth. When learning about social structures, to not consider conservatives as well as progressives is to foreclose students’ freedom of inquiry. </p>
<p>To teach <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/23da4f1e-df48-11e3-86a4-00144feabdc0">a single economic perspective</a> as unquestionably “scientific”, without considering its philosophical assumptions and historical failings, is likewise to do free inquiry (and our students) a disservice.</p>
<p>The question of how we should teach openly anti-liberal, anti-democratic thinkers is <a href="https://www.academia.edu/37018845/Dangerous_Minds_in_Dangerous_Times">more complex</a>. But surely to do so without explaining to students the implications of these thinkers’ ideas, and how they have been used by malign historical forces, is once more to sell intellectual freedom (and our democracy) short.</p>
<p>The final curve ball in free speech debates today comes from social media. Single remarks made anywhere in the world can now be ripped from their context, “go viral”, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/books/review/jon-ronsons-so-youve-been-publicly-shamed.html">cost someone</a> their livelihood.</p>
<p>Freedom of speech, to be meaningful, depends on the ability of people of differing opinions to state their opinions (so long as their opinions are not criminal and don’t incite hatred or violence) without fear that, by doing so, they will be jeopardising their own and loved ones’ well-being.</p>
<p>When such conditions apply, as the Colonel used to say on Hogan’s Heroes, “we have ways of making you talk”. And also ways of keeping people silent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Sharpe works for Deakin University, and has previously received ARC funding to work on religion and politics, and the history of different conceptions of philosophy.</span></em></p>Free inquiry has always been a fraught business, from Eden to Facebook, but is a key component of any open society. It shouldn’t be taken for granted.Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1094952019-01-29T11:45:46Z2019-01-29T11:45:46ZHow to have productive disagreements about politics and religion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255049/original/file-20190122-100288-yhbmr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=164%2C14%2C4244%2C2791&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Psychology research suggests a new tool for your ‘disagreement toolbox.’ </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-pretty-africaamerican-women-drinking-cocktails-1056856253">Dragon Images/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the current polarized climate, it’s easy to find yourself in the midst of a political disagreement that morphs into a religious argument. People’s religious affiliation <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/22/american-religious-groups-vary-widely-in-their-views-of-abortion/">predicts their stances on abortion</a>, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2009.01449.x">immigration</a> and other controversial topics, and disagreements about these issues can seem intractable. </p>
<p>The seeming futility in arguing about politics and religion may arise partly because people misunderstand the nature of these beliefs. Many people approach an ideological disagreement the same way they would a disagreement about facts. If you disagree with someone about when water freezes, facts are convincing. It’s easy to think that if you disagree with someone about immigration, facts will be similarly persuasive.</p>
<p>This might work if people’s ideological beliefs worked the same way as their factual beliefs – but they don’t. As psychologists who focus on religious and moral cognition, <a href="https://columbiasamclab.weebly.com">my colleagues and I</a> are investigating how people understand that these are two separate classes of belief. Our work suggests that an effective strategy for disagreement involves approaching ideological beliefs as a combination of fact and opinion.</p>
<h2>Identifying a difference</h2>
<p>To investigate whether people distinguish between facts and religious beliefs, my colleagues and I <a href="https://columbiasamclab.weebly.com/uploads/5/9/0/6/59061709/heiphetz_landers_vanleeuwen_in_press_prs.pdf">examined</a> a <a href="https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/">database containing more than 520 million words</a> from speeches, novels, newspapers and other sources. </p>
<p>Religious statements were typically preceded by the phrase “believe that” rather than “think that.” Phrases like “I believe that Jesus turned water into wine” were relatively common, whereas phrases like “I think that Jesus turned water into wine” were nearly nonexistent.</p>
<p>In four subsequent experiments, we asked adults to complete sentences like “Zane __ that Jesus turned water into wine.” Participants were more likely to use “believes” for religious and political claims and “thinks” for factual claims. </p>
<p><iframe id="Qgbts" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Qgbts/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Taken together, these results suggest that people distinguish between factual beliefs, on the one hand, and religious and political claims, on the other.</p>
<p>Rather than equating ideologies and facts, people appear to view ideologies as a combination of fact and opinion. In two earlier studies, 5- to 10-year-old children and adults learned about pairs of characters who <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.09.005">disagreed about religious, factual and opinion-based statements</a>. For example, we told participants that one person thought that God could hear prayers while the other didn’t, or that two other people disagreed about whether or not blue is the prettiest color. Participants said that only one person could be right nearly every time they heard a factual disagreement, but they gave this answer less often when they heard a religious disagreement and less often still when they heard an opinion-based disagreement.</p>
<p>This result may occur because children and adults think that different types of beliefs provide different information. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2013.12.002">Participants told us</a> that factual claims reveal information about the world, whereas opinions reveal information about the speaker. They also reported that religious claims reveal a moderate amount of information about both the world and the speaker. People who say that God exists are ostensibly making a claim about what kinds of beings exist in the world – but not everyone would agree with that claim, so they are also revealing information about themselves. </p>
<h2>Recognizing the difference in everyday life</h2>
<p>So how can you use our results when a contentious topic arises outside the lab?</p>
<p>When you find yourself in the midst of an ideological disagreement, it can be tempting to correct the other person’s facts. “Actually, scientific evidence shows that the earth is <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-science-figured-out-the-age-of-the-earth/">more than 4 billion years old</a> and that <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/humans/humankind/index.html">humans did indeed evolve</a> from <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu">other primates</a>.” “Actually, recent data show that immigrants <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-immigration-bad-for-the-economy-4-essential-reads-99001">contribute to the economy</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/two-charts-demolish-the-notion-that-immigrants-here-illegally-commit-more-crime/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.bbdd23b1132b">commit fewer crimes</a> than native-born Americans.” </p>
<p>Yet this type of information alone is often insufficient to resolve disagreements. It’s addressing the part of ideological beliefs that is like a fact, the part where someone is trying to communicate information about the world. But it’s missing the part where ideological beliefs are also like an opinion. Without this part, saying, “Actually, evidence shows that X” sounds a lot like saying, “Actually, evidence proves that blue is not the prettiest color.” To be convincing, you need tools that address both the fact part and the opinion part of an ideology.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255014/original/file-20190122-100282-3kcjfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255014/original/file-20190122-100282-3kcjfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255014/original/file-20190122-100282-3kcjfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255014/original/file-20190122-100282-3kcjfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255014/original/file-20190122-100282-3kcjfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255014/original/file-20190122-100282-3kcjfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255014/original/file-20190122-100282-3kcjfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255014/original/file-20190122-100282-3kcjfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">There’s a better way than arguing as if over facts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/nBMNu-SBRXk">Andrea Tummons/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>People rarely change their opinions because someone out-argued them. Rather, opinion-based change can come from exposure. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0025848">People like</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2008.26.3.259">the familiar</a>, even when that familiarity comes from the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00289">briefest of prior exposures</a>. The same could occur for viewpoints that they’ve heard before. </p>
<p>What does exposure look like when talking about ideological disagreements? “Hmm. I actually think something different.” “I really appreciated the way my science tutor was patient with me when I didn’t understand evolution. The way she explained things made a lot of sense to me after a while.” “I’m going to donate money to groups helping asylum seekers. Do you want to join me?”</p>
<p>Maybe you say just one of these sentences, but others pick up where you left off. By walking around in the world, someone might encounter numerous counterpoints to their opinions, perhaps leading to gradual change as other views become more familiar. </p>
<p>It’s not anyone’s responsibility to say these sentences, least of all people who are being harmed by the disagreement. But for those in a position to change minds via repeated exposure, this strategy can be a helpful addition to the “managing disagreement” toolboxes everyone carries.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109495/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Larisa Heiphetz receives funding from the John Templeton Foundation. She has also received funding from American Psychological Association, American Psychological Foundation/Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology, Harvard University, National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, and National Science Foundation to conduct the work described here.</span></em></p>Research suggests people intuitively draw a distinction between what is known and what is believed. Recognizing the difference can help in ideological disagreements.Larisa Heiphetz, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Columbia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1027552018-09-06T23:01:58Z2018-09-06T23:01:58ZThousands of mental health professionals agree with Woodward and the New York Times op-ed author: Trump is dangerous<p>Bob Woodward’s new book, “Fear,” describes a “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodwards-new-book-reveals-a-nervous-breakdown-of-trumps-presidency/2018/09/04/b27a389e-ac60-11e8-a8d7-0f63ab8b1370_story.html">nervous breakdown of Trump’s presidency</a>.” Earlier this year, Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/01/05/michael-wolffs-book-read-highlights-fire-and-fury/1006836001/">offered a similar portrayal</a>.</p>
<p>Now, an op-ed in The New York Times by an anonymous “senior White House official” describes how deeply the troubles in this administration run and what effort is required <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html">to protect the nation</a>. </p>
<p>None of this is a surprise to those of us who, 18 months ago, put together our own public service book, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250179456">“The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President</a>.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/miles-de-expertos-en-salud-mental-coinciden-en-el-diagnostico-donald-trump-es-un-peligro-102949">Miles de expertos en salud mental coinciden en el diagnóstico: Donald Trump es un peligro</a>
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<p>My focus as the volume’s editor was on Trump’s dangerousness because of my area of expertise in violence prevention. Approaching violence as a public health issue, I have consulted with governments and international organizations, in addition to 20 years of engaging in <a href="https://medicine.yale.edu/psychiatry/people/bandy_lee.profile">the individual assessment and treatment of violent offenders</a>. </p>
<p>The book proceeded from an ethics conference I held at Yale, my home institution. At that meeting, my psychiatrist colleagues and I discussed balancing two essential duties of our profession. First is the duty to speak responsibly about public officials, especially as outlined in “<a href="https://www.psychiatry.org/newsroom/goldwater-rule">the Goldwater rule</a>,” which requires that we refrain from diagnosing without a personal examination and without authorization. Second is our responsibility to protect public health and safety, or our “duty to warn” <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2017-04-21/mental-health-professionals-debate-ethics-in-the-age-of-trump">in cases of danger</a>, which usually supersedes other rules. </p>
<p>Our conclusion was overwhelmingly that our responsibility to society and its safety, as outlined in <a href="https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/ethics">our ethical guidelines</a>, overrode any etiquette owed to a public figure. That decision led to the collection of essays in the book, which includes some of the most prominent thinkers of the field including Robert J. Lifton, Judith Herman, Philip Zimbardo and two dozen others. That decision was <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/psychiatrists-goldwater-rule-trump-era">controversial among some members</a> of our field.</p>
<p>We already know a great deal about Trump’s mental state based on the voluminous information he has given through his tweets and his responses to real situations in real time. Now, this week’s credible reports support the concerns we articulated in the book beyond any doubt.</p>
<p>These reports are also consistent with the account I received from two White House staff members who called me in October 2017 because the president was behaving in a manner that “scared” them, and they believed he was “unraveling”. They were calling because of the book I edited. </p>
<p>Once I confirmed that they did not perceive the situation as an imminent danger, I referred them to the emergency room, in order not to be bound by confidentiality rules that would apply if I engaged with them as a treating physician. That would have compromised my role of educating the public.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235280/original/file-20180906-190662-18su3ep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235280/original/file-20180906-190662-18su3ep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235280/original/file-20180906-190662-18su3ep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235280/original/file-20180906-190662-18su3ep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235280/original/file-20180906-190662-18su3ep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235280/original/file-20180906-190662-18su3ep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235280/original/file-20180906-190662-18su3ep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Author Bob Woodward’s new book on Trump.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Mark Lennihan</span></span>
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<h2>The psychology behind the chaos</h2>
<p>The author of the New York Times op-ed makes clear that the conflict in the White House is not about Trump’s ideology. </p>
<p>The problem, the author sees, is the lack of “any discernible first principles that guide his decision making … his impulsiveness [that] results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html">and there being</a> literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next.”</p>
<p>These are obviously <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodwards-new-book-reveals-a-nervous-breakdown-of-trumps-presidency/2018/09/04/b27a389e-ac60-11e8-a8d7-0f63ab8b1370_story.html">psychological symptoms</a> reflective of emotional compulsion, impulsivity, poor concentration, narcissism and recklessness. They are identical to those that Woodward describes in numerous examples, which he writes were met with the “stealthy machinations used by those in Trump’s inner sanctum to try to control his impulses and prevent disasters.”</p>
<p>They are also consistent with the course we foresaw early in Trump’s presidency, which concerned us enough to outline it in our book. We tried to warn that his condition was worse than it appeared, would grow worse over time and would eventually become uncontainable.</p>
<p>What we observed were signs of mental instability – signs that would eventually play out not only in the White House, as these <a href="http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/11/lowest-point.aspx">accounts report</a>, but in domestic situations and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/12/how-trumps-nato-summit-meltdown-unfolded">in the geopolitical sphere</a>. </p>
<p>There is a strong connection between immediate dangerousness – the likelihood of waging a war or launching nuclear weapons – and extended societal dangerousness – policies that force separation of children from families or the restructuring of global relations in a way that would destabilize the world.</p>
<h2>Getting worse</h2>
<p>My current concern is that we are already witnessing a further unraveling of the president’s mental state, especially as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/04/president-trump-has-made-false-or-misleading-claims-days/">frequency of his lying increases</a> and the fervor <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-attacks-metoo-movement-in-unhinged-rally-tirade.html">of his rallies intensifies</a>.</p>
<p>I am concerned that his mental challenges could cause him to take unpredictable and potentially extreme and dangerous measures to distract from his legal problems.</p>
<p>Mental health professionals have standard procedures for evaluating dangerousness. More than a personal interview, violence potential is best assessed through past history and a <a href="http://www.antoniocasella.eu/archipsy/Dolan_Doyle_2000.pdf">structured checklist</a> of a person’s characteristics.</p>
<p>These characteristics include a history of cruelty to animals or other people, risk taking, behavior suggesting loss of control or impulsivity, narcissistic personality and current mental instability. <a href="https://btci.stanford.clockss.org/cgi/content/full/8/1/73/">Also of concern are</a> noncompliance or unwillingness to undergo tests or treatment, access to weapons, poor relationship with significant other or spouse, seeing oneself as a victim, lack of compassion or empathy, and lack of concern over consequences of harmful acts. </p>
<p>The Woodward book and the New York Times op-ed confirm many of these characteristics. The rest have been evident in Trump’s behavior outside the White House and prior to his tenure.</p>
<p>That the president has met not just some but all these criteria should be reason for alarm.</p>
<p>Other ways in which a president could be dangerous are through cognitive symptoms or lapses, since functions such as reasoning, memory, attention, language and learning are critical to the duties of a president. He has exhibited <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/23/donald-trump-speaking-style-interviews/">signs of decline here, too</a>.</p>
<p>Furthermore, when someone displays a <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-told-white-supremacists-attack-protesters-so-they-did-650622">propensity for large-scale violence</a>, such as by advocating <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-told-white-supremacists-attack-protesters-so-they-did-650622">violence against protesters</a> or <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/11/17443198/children-immigrant-families-separated-parents">immigrant families</a>, calling perpetrators of violence such as white supremacists “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-defends-white-nationalist-protesters-some-very-fine-people-on-both-sides/537012/">very fine people</a>” or showing oneself vulnerable to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/07/17/629601233/trumps-helsinki-bow-to-putin-leaves-world-wondering-whats-up">manipulation by hostile foreign powers</a>, then these things can promote a much more widespread <a href="http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/norms.pdf">culture of violence</a>.</p>
<p>The president has already shown an alarming escalation of irrational behavior during times of distress. Others have observed him to be <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/donald-trump-is-unraveling-white-house-advisers">“unstable,” “losing a step” and “unraveling.”</a> He is likely to enter such a state again. </p>
<p>Violent acts are <a href="https://www.usnews.com/opinion/policy-dose/articles/2018-03-06/prevent-violence-at-the-societal-level">not random events</a>. They are end products of a long process that follow recognizable patterns. As mental health experts, we make predictions in terms of unacceptable levels of probability rather than on the basis of what is certain to happen. </p>
<p>Trump’s impairment is a familiar pattern to a violence expert such as myself, but given his level of severity, one does not need to be a specialist to know that he is dangerous. </p>
<h2>What next?</h2>
<p>I believe Woodward’s book and the revelations in the New York Times op-ed have placed great pressure on the president. We are now entering a period when the stresses of the presidency could accelerate because of the advancing special counsel’s investigations. </p>
<p>The degree of Trump’s denial and resistance to the unfolding revelations, as expressed in a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/23/politics/donald-trump-fox-news/index.html">recent Fox interview</a>, are telling of his fragility. </p>
<p>From my observations of the president over extended time via his public presentations, direct thoughts through tweets and accounts of his close associates, I believe that the question is not whether he will look for distractions, but how soon and to what degree. </p>
<p>At least several thousands of mental health professionals who are members of the <a href="https://dangerouscase.org/">National Coalition of Concerned Mental Health Experts</a> share the view that the nuclear launch codes should not be in the hands of someone who exhibits such <a href="https://dangerouscase.org/our-mission/">levels of mental instability</a>.</p>
<p>Just as suspicion of crime should lead to an investigation, the severity of impairment that we see should <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1046/j.1440-1614.1999.00515.x">lead to an evaluation</a>, preferably with the president’s consent.</p>
<p>Mental impairment should be evaluated independently from criminal investigations, using medical criteria and <a href="https://www.springer.com/us/book/9780306473432">standardized measures</a>. A sitting president may be <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-31/a-sitting-president-can-t-be-prosecuted">immune to indictments</a>, but he is subject to the law, which is strict about public safety and the right to treatment when an individual <a href="https://www.healio.com/psychiatry/journals/psycann/1976-6-6-6/%7Be9d4b445-bf17-4bb3-b20c-aed8bf379f0d%7D/in-search-of-a-sane-commitment-statute#divReadThis">poses a danger to the public</a> because of mental instability. In the case of danger, the patient does not have the right to refuse, nor does the physician have the right not to take the person as a patient.</p>
<p>This evaluation may have been delayed, but it is still not too late. And mental health professionals have extensive experience assessing, restraining and treating individuals much like Trump – it is almost routine.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on September 7, 2018; it reflects new information about the author’s contact with White House staff.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bandy X. Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Revelations about the president’s behavior in a new book and an unsigned op-ed, writes a Yale psychiatrist, support what she and mental health specialists have warned: Trump is dangerously unstable.Bandy X. Lee, Assistant Clinical Professor, Yale School of Medicine, Yale UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/902412018-01-18T13:54:45Z2018-01-18T13:54:45ZOur experiment into how voters think shows that they go with their guts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202403/original/file-20180118-29894-equhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/color-image-some-people-voting-polling-435657658">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Experts were famously made unwelcome in the final run up to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/eu-referendum-2016">Brexit</a> referendum of 2016. Leave campaigner Michael Gove said people <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/09/michael-gove-experts-academics-vote">had had enough of them</a>.</p>
<p>But that did not stop experts from sharing their opinions. Plenty of economists, business leaders and political scientists <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/eu-referendum-2016">argued for remaining in the EU</a>. So why didn’t they win the argument? </p>
<p>To try and find out, my team and I <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825617300635">studied</a> how people use different information when it comes to voting. We presented participants with a simple voting situation in which they had to choose between three simple options: vote red, vote blue, or abstain. For the purposes of our experiment, and unlike in an election or referendum, each time participants voted, there was a definite “correct” answer determined at random by a computer. </p>
<p>Their choices became a political bet. If they chose correctly, and others did too, they won a small cash prize. If enough of them chose incorrectly, they’d all lose out. There was an incentive for participants to come to the right decision. </p>
<p>We also presented the voters with two types of information. “Public information” was seen by everyone and referred to as “expert”. “Private information” was given to individuals and referred to “personal opinion”. Each type was also presented with a probability of it being correct, ranging from 50%, to as high as 95%.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sz1_LHtfuCI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>For the experiment, we weren’t interested in which way participants voted – but rather how they used the information they were given in reaching a decision. Which would hold more sway? Expert, public information available for all to see, or the non-expert, privately held information? </p>
<p>We predicted that voters would opt for the choice where the probability of it being correct was highest – or that they’d abstain where it was not clear. If, for example, expert advice said to vote red with 95% certainty of that being “correct” and private information said to vote blue with only 55% certainty of being correct, then logically and rationally participants would vote red. </p>
<p>Or, if both options had a similar probability (let’s say expert advice points to red with 95% certainty, whereas private information points to blue with 85% certainty) then the best action would be to abstain, in the hope that others who had a clearer picture of the correct choice would determine the winner. </p>
<p>But people did not do as we expected.</p>
<p>Although some followed that logical approach, the majority did not vote efficiently. They followed their personal information when it made no sense to do so. Around 55% of participants voted on personal information, against expert information, when only around 10% should have done so. </p>
<p>We found this behaviour consistently every time we ran the experiment. Even when voters had private information that we deemed borderline useless – where the probability of it being correct was about 50% – they still followed this private advice, ignoring public, expert options. </p>
<h2>Going with guts</h2>
<p>As a result, all the participants earned far less money in the experiment that they could have done.</p>
<p>Our experiment was a standalone economic one. But it presents an interesting observation of what might have happened when it came to the EU referendum in 2016, or the election of President Donald Trump in the US. </p>
<p>For political reasons, in those instances the electorate went against what was expected, and against the weight of “expert evidence and advice”. Of course, for both outcomes the jury is still out on what was the better economic decision. </p>
<p>In our experiment, we set up a gamble where participants would only end up losing out by small amounts. When the stakes are much higher, ensuring that expert advice gets through to everyone might be a gamble none of us can afford to lose. </p>
<p>For political campaigns to be successful, a focus on objective facts will only get you so far – and often that’s not far enough to win over the electorate. Both the messenger, and the message, need to be right. </p>
<p>But whatever the rights and wrongs of Brexit and Trump, we found that private information carries more sway when it comes to informing individual choices. It does not matter how good experts are or what they say, voters will often favour what their guts tell them when it comes to choosing where to put their X in the ballot box.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90241/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Javier Rivas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why experts don’t always win the argument.Javier Rivas, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/819882017-08-03T02:48:48Z2017-08-03T02:48:48ZABC News’ long-form journalism pays off on Twitter<p>As they face a changing market for journalistic content, Australian news organisations are increasingly being forced to experiment with new approaches to telling their stories. The Australian Twitter News Index (ATNIX) for July 2017 shows that some new formats for investigative reports can generate considerable audience engagement – but old-fashioned commentary and opinion pieces also still manage to attract an audience.</p>
<p>Most notably, on 10 July 2017 ABC News recorded a significant increase in the number of tweets sharing its articles. This was due entirely to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-09/did-trumps-g20-performance-indicate-us-decline-as-world-power/8691538?WT.mc_id=newsmail&WT.tsrc=Newsmail">political editor Chris Uhlmann’s strident criticism of the Trump administration</a> (2,700 tweets that day), published from the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg. </p>
<p>Given the strong and well-documented international response to Uhlmann’s comments, the article actually receives fewer tweets than we might expect. His comments were republished or excerpted in text and video by news outlets around the world, so Twitter users did not necessarily need to go searching for the original piece.</p>
<p>Still, over the course of the entire month the story was shared some 5,300 times on Twitter, making it the most widely shared ABC News article in July by a considerable margin. In keeping with a pattern established over past months, by contrast, the other major ABC News stories for the month retain a strong domestic focus. </p>
<p>A major report on <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8652028">the sexual abuse of women by evangelical Christians</a> was shared 2,300 times; coverage of <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8687268">Elon Musk’s plans to build the world’s largest lithium ion battery in South Australia</a> received 2,200 tweets. Another special report on leaked documents exposing <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8466642">human rights abuses by Australian special forces in Afghanistan</a> was shared 2,100 times; and coverage of <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8678466">a new map of historic massacres of indigenous Australians since 1788</a> was shared in 1,500 tweets.</p>
<p>The presence of two special reports is especially noteworthy here. These reports are long-form and investigative, presented in a format distinct from ordinary ABC News articles. We’ve seen these appear from time to time, and the inclusion of two such dossiers in ABC News’ most shared articles during July clearly shows the strong public demand to this form of content. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, July 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the midst of considerable staff cuts in the commercial media, the public broadcaster is now one of the last major news organisations in Australia that is still able to conduct complex investigative reporting on key public interest issues. The response on Twitter indicates that the national news audience is rewarding such efforts with its engagement.</p>
<p>The Sydney Morning Herald did not manage to attract quite as much attention this month. Its top story for July is an opinion piece decrying <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gxb6qh.html">conservative media outlets’ sustained <em>ad feminam</em> attacks on Yassmin Abdel-Magied</a> (1,700 tweets). </p>
<p>Other key articles include a report on UN claims that <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gxhi1o.html">the Australian government reneged on a refugee resettlement agreement</a> (1,500 tweets), on <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gx7mv5.html">the failure of Philip Morris’s court case against plain tobacco packaging laws</a> (1,400 tweets), and on <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gx820x.html">federal MPs’ refusal to sign up to the “Fitzgerald Principles” for ethical conduct</a> (1,300 tweets). Another opinion piece rounds out the top five: <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gxi2nk.html">Ross Gittins’s criticism of the federal government’s new homeland security regime</a> is shared in 1,200 tweets.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, July 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s striking that two of the top five SMH articles in July were opinion pieces. In light of the commercial difficulties Fairfax is facing, it may well choose to focus increasingly on comparatively inexpensive-to-produce commentary, while ceding yet more of the business of investigative journalism to ABC News and other publications. </p>
<p>Longer-term trends in content production and audience engagement will see such strategies emerge more clearly.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, July 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">The data</a> on the total number of visits to each news site by Australian internet users see ABC News well ahead of nearest rivals Nine News and The Age for the second month in a row; this extends an unexpected decline especially in Nine News’ numbers since the end of May. </p>
<p>However, news.com.au and the Sydney Morning Herald still remain well ahead of the pack and their comparative market dominance seems unlikely to change any time soon.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, July 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s also notable that at a domestic level, ABC News does not record a major increase in visits as a result of Chris Uhlmann’s G20 piece on 10 July; this points clearly to the fact that most of the additional attention to that article came from overseas. </p>
<p>Twitter may have played its role in the viral dissemination of Uhlmann’s criticism; but, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-10/how-chris-uhlmanns-g20-takedown-of-donald-trump-went-viral/8695144">as we now know from subsequent coverage</a>, mainstream reporting and republishing of Uhlmann’s views by major US and UK outlets soon followed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81988/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project "Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere". Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions' Impact on Public Debate". Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity (<a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/</a>).</span></em></p>ABC News’ investment in long-form journalism is generating strong take-up on Twitter.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/760202017-04-17T19:47:03Z2017-04-17T19:47:03ZFacts are not always more important than opinions: here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164993/original/image-20170412-615-1uec762.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The message over the doorway to London's Kirkaldy Testing Museum. But don't be too quick to believe the facts and dismiss the opinions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/grebo_guru/13858140/">Flickr/Kevo Thomson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Which is more important, a fact or an opinion on any given subject? It might be tempting to say the fact. But not so fast…</p>
<p>Lately, we find ourselves lamenting the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-surprising-origins-of-post-truth-and-how-it-was-spawned-by-the-liberal-left-68929">post-truth</a> world, in which facts seem no more important than opinions, and sometimes less so.</p>
<p>We also tend to see this as a recent devaluation of knowledge. But this is a phenomenon with a long history.</p>
<p>As the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov <a href="http://aphelis.net/cult-ignorance-isaac-asimov-1980/">wrote</a> in 1980: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The view that opinions can be more important than facts need not mean the same thing as the devaluing of knowledge. It’s always been the case that in certain situations opinions have been more important than facts, and this is a good thing. Let me explain.</p>
<h2>Not all facts are true</h2>
<p>To call something a fact is, presumably, to make a claim that it is true. This isn’t a problem for many things, although defending such a claim can be harder than you think.</p>
<p>What we think are facts – that is, those things we think are true – can end up being wrong despite our most honest commitment to genuine inquiry.</p>
<p>For example, is red wine <a href="http://www.medicaldaily.com/red-wine-burns-fat-and-lowers-blood-pressure-plus-5-other-health-benefits-winos-321382">good</a> or <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/red-wine-is-not-good-for-you-after-all-says-chief-medical-officer-a6800296.html">bad</a> for you? And was there a dinosaur called the <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-brontosaurus-is-back1/">brontosaurus</a> or <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/12/09/166665795/forget-extinct-the-brontosaurus-never-even-existed">not</a>? The Harvard researcher <a href="http://www.arbesman.net/">Samuel Arbesman</a> points out these examples and others of how facts change in his book <a href="http://www.arbesman.net/the-half-life-of-facts/">The Half Life of Facts</a>. </p>
<p>It’s not only that facts can change that is a problem. While we might be happy to consider it a fact that Earth is spherical, we would be wrong to do so because it’s actually a bit pear-shaped. Thinking it a sphere, however, is very different from <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-would-anyone-believe-the-earth-is-flat-53800">thinking it to be flat</a>.</p>
<p>Asimov expressed this beautifully in his essay <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/394418.The_Relativity_of_Wrong">The Relativity of Wrong</a>. For Asimov, the person who thinks Earth is a sphere is wrong, and so is the person who thinks the Earth is flat. But the person who thinks that they are equally wrong is more wrong than both.</p>
<p>Geometrical hair-splitting aside, calling something a fact is therefore not a proclamation of infallibility. It is usually used to represent the best knowledge we have at any given time. </p>
<p>It’s also not the knockout blow we might hope for in an argument. Saying something is a fact by itself does nothing to convince someone who doesn’t agree with you. Unaccompanied by any warrant for belief, it is not a technique of persuasion. Proof by volume and repetition – repeatedly yelling “but it’s a fact!” – simply doesn’t work. Or at least it shouldn’t. </p>
<h2>Matters of fact and opinion</h2>
<p>Then again, calling something an opinion need not mean an escape to the fairyland of wishful thinking. This too is not a knockout attack in an argument. If we think of an opinion as one person’s view on a subject, then many opinions can be solid. </p>
<p>For example, it’s my opinion that science gives us a powerful narrative to help understand our place in the Universe, at least as much as any religious perspective does. It’s not an empirical fact that science does so, but it works for me.</p>
<p>But we can be much clearer in our meaning if we separate things into matters of fact and matters of opinion.</p>
<p>Matters of fact are confined to empirical claims, such as what the boiling point of a substance is, whether lead is denser than water, or whether the planet is warming. </p>
<p>Matters of opinion are non-empirical claims, and include questions of value and of personal preference such as whether it’s ok to eat animals, and whether vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate. Ethics is an exemplar of a system in which matters of fact cannot by themselves decide courses of action. </p>
<p>Matters of opinion can be informed by matters of fact (for example, finding out that animals can suffer may influence whether I choose to eat them), but ultimately they are not answered by matters of fact (why is it relevant if they can suffer?).</p>
<h2>Backing up the facts and opinions</h2>
<p>Opinions are not just pale shadows of facts; they are judgements and conclusions. They can be the result of careful and sophisticated deliberation in areas for which empirical investigation is inadequate or ill-suited.</p>
<p>While it’s nice to think of the world so neatly divided into matters of fact and matters of opinion, it’s not always so clinical in its precision. For example, it is a fact that I prefer vanilla ice cream over chocolate. In other words, it is apparently a matter of fact that I am having a subjective experience.</p>
<p>But we can heal that potential rift by further restricting matters of fact to those things that can be verified by others.</p>
<p>While it’s true that my ice cream preference could be experimentally indicated by observing my behaviour and interviewing me, it cannot be independently verified by others beyond doubt. I could be faking it.</p>
<p>But we can all agree in principle on whether the atmosphere contains more nitrogen or carbon dioxide because we can share the methodology of inquiry that gives us the answer. We can also agree on matters of value if the case for a particular view is rationally persuasive.</p>
<p>Facts and opinions need not be positioned in opposition to each other, as they have complementary functions in our decision-making. In a rational framework, they are equally useful. But that’s just my opinion – it’s not a fact.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76020/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ellerton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When it comes to facts versus opinions, just remember that not all facts have been true, and not all opinions should be dismissed either.Peter Ellerton, Lecturer in Critical Thinking, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/692282017-01-04T11:11:59Z2017-01-04T11:11:59ZBrexit, Trump and ‘post-truth’: the science of how we become entrenched in our views<p>Finally a new year is here after the most politically divisive 12 months in a very long time. In the UK, Brexit shattered dreams and friendships. In the US, the <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/">polarisation</a> was already huge, but a bitter election campaign made the divisions even deeper. Political rhetoric doesn’t persuade evenly. It splits and polarises public opinion.</p>
<p>As a citizen, the growing divisions trouble me. As a neuroscientist, it intrigues me. How is it possible that people come to hold <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-legacy-poll_us_569fde11e4b0fca5ba765452">such widely different views of reality</a>? And what can we do (if anything) to break out of the cycle of <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12152/full">increasingly hostile feelings</a> towards people who seem to be on “the other side” from us?</p>
<p>To understand how the psychology works, imagine Amy and Betsy, two Democrat supporters. At the start of the presidential primary season, neither of them has a strong preference. They both would like a female president, which draws them towards Hillary Clinton, but they also think that Bernie Sanders would be better at tackling economic inequality. After some initial pondering, Amy decides to support Clinton, while Betsy picks Sanders. </p>
<p>Their initial differences of opinion may have been fairly small, and their preferences weak, but a few months later, they have both become firmly convinced that their candidate is the right one. Their support goes further than words: Amy has started canvassing for Clinton, while Betsy writes articles supporting the Sanders campaign. </p>
<p>How did their positions shift so decidedly? Enter “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ioUhAQAAMAAJ">cognitive dissonance</a>”, a term coined in 1957 by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Festinger">Leon Festinger</a>. It has become shorthand for the inconsistencies we perceive in other people’s views – but rarely in our own. </p>
<p>What people are less aware of is that dissonance drives opinion change. Festinger proposed that the inconsistencies we experience in our beliefs create an emotional discomfort that acts as a force to reduce the inconsistency, by changing our beliefs or adding new ones. </p>
<p>A choice can also create dissonance, especially if it involves <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3150852">a difficult trade off</a>. Not choosing Sanders may generate dissonance for Amy because it clashes with her belief that it is important to tackle inequality, for example.</p>
<p>That choice and commitment to the chosen option leads to opinion change has been demonstrated in many experiments. In one recent study, people rated their chosen holiday destinations <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20679522">higher after than before making the choice</a>. Amazingly, these changes were still in place <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22933456">three years later</a>. </p>
<p>Almost <a href="https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/cognitive-dissonance/book230406">60 years of research</a> and thousands of experiments have shown that dissonance most strongly operates when events impact our core beliefs, especially the beliefs we have about ourselves as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25506752">smart, good and competent people</a>. </p>
<h2>Pyramid of choice</h2>
<p>But how do we become so entrenched? Imagine Amy and Betsy <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/522525.Mistakes_Were_Made_But_Not_by_Me_">at the top of a pyramid</a>
at the start of the campaign, where their preferences are fairly similar. Their initial decision amounts to a step off each side of the pyramid. This sets in motion a cycle of self-justification to reduce the dissonance (“I made the right choice because …”), further actions (defending their decision to family, posting to friends on Facebook, becoming a campaign volunteer), and further self-justification. As they go down their sides of the pyramid, justifying their initial choice, their convictions become stronger and their views grow further apart.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150298/original/image-20161215-13651-1nn7qpb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150298/original/image-20161215-13651-1nn7qpb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150298/original/image-20161215-13651-1nn7qpb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150298/original/image-20161215-13651-1nn7qpb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150298/original/image-20161215-13651-1nn7qpb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150298/original/image-20161215-13651-1nn7qpb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150298/original/image-20161215-13651-1nn7qpb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150298/original/image-20161215-13651-1nn7qpb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The analogy of the pyramid comes from Mistakes were made (but not by me) by Elliot Aronson and Carol Tavris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">From www.rightbetween.com</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A similar hardening of views happened in Republicans who became either vocal Trump or #NeverTrump supporters, and in previously independent voters when they committed to Clinton or Trump. It also applied to Remain and Leave campaigners in the UK, although the choice they had to make was about an idea rather than a candidate.</p>
<p>As voters of all stripes descend down their sides of the pyramid, they tend to come to like their preferred candidate or view more, and build a stronger dislike of the opposing one. They also seek (and find) more reasons to support their decision. Paradoxically, this means that every time <a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/jocn.2006.18.11.1947#.WFJlIvmLREY">we argue about our position</a> with others, we can become more certain that we are, in fact, right.</p>
<h2>The view from the bottom of the pyramid</h2>
<p>The further down we go, the more prone we become to <a href="https://theconversation.com/confirmation-bias-a-psychological-phenomenon-that-helps-explain-why-pundits-got-it-wrong-68781">confirmation bias</a> and to believing scandal-driven, partisan and even <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-we-fall-for-fake-news-69829">fake news</a> – the dislike we feel for the opposing side makes derogatory stories about them more believable.</p>
<p>In effect, the more certain we become of our own views, the more we feel a need to denigrate those who are on the other side of the pyramid. “I am a good and smart person, and I wouldn’t hold any wrong beliefs or commit any hurtful acts”, our reasoning goes. “If you proclaim the opposite of what I believe, then you must be misguided, ignorant, stupid, crazy, or evil.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150523/original/image-20161216-26137-1336iqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150523/original/image-20161216-26137-1336iqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150523/original/image-20161216-26137-1336iqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150523/original/image-20161216-26137-1336iqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150523/original/image-20161216-26137-1336iqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150523/original/image-20161216-26137-1336iqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150523/original/image-20161216-26137-1336iqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/97214336@N05/27442760914/sizes/l">@wgaronsmith/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is no coincidence that people on opposite ends of a polarised debate judge each other in similar terms. Our social brains predispose us to it. Six-month-old infants can already evaluate the behaviour of others, preferring <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7169/abs/nature06288.html">“nice” over “nasty”</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23459869">“similar” over “dissimilar”</a>.</p>
<p>We also possess powerful, automatic cognitive processes to <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0053827">protect ourselves from being cheated</a>. But our social reasoning is oversensitive and <a href="http://www.all-about-psychology.com/fritz-heider.html">easily misfires</a>. Social media makes matters worse because electronic communication makes it harder to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16393025">correctly evaluate the perspective and intentions of others</a>. It also makes us more <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16393025">verbally aggressive</a> than we are in person, feeding our perception that those on the other side really are an abusive bunch.</p>
<p>The pyramid analogy is a useful tool to understand how people move from weak to strong convictions on a certain issue or candidate, and how our views can diverge from others who held a similar position in the past.</p>
<p>But having strong convictions is not necessarily a bad thing: after all, they also inspire our best actions. </p>
<p>What would help to reduce the growing <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/section-2-growing-partisan-antipathy/">antipathy and mistrust</a> is to become more wary of our default stupid-crazy-evil reasoning, the derogatory explanations that we readily believe about people who disagree with us on matters close to our heart. If we keep in mind that – rather than being the “truth” – they can be the knee-jerk reaction of our social brains, we might pull ourselves just high enough up the slopes of the pyramid to find out where our disagreements really come from.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69228/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kris De Meyer is Director of Aniku Ltd, production company of Right Between Your Ears.</span></em></p>The more we have to defend our choice to others, the more certain we become that we are right. So what can we do about it?Kris De Meyer, Research Fellow in Neuroscience, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/545332016-04-05T09:50:02Z2016-04-05T09:50:02ZWhen covering elections, journalists face a debilitating dilemma<p>Last week, President Obama <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/us/obama-urges-journalists-to-cover-the-substance-of-the-campaign.html">criticized journalists covering the election</a> for “the practice of drawing ‘false equivalences’ between competing claims made by politicians.” </p>
<p>“If I say the world is round and someone else says it’s flat, that’s worth reporting,” he <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/us/obama-urges-journalists-to-cover-the-substance-of-the-campaign.html">said</a>. “But you might also want to report on a bunch of scientific evidence that seems to support the notion that the world is round.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it is not so simple. </p>
<p>In an ongoing research project, I have been using game theory to study how, in the right circumstances, a political party can make excessive demands in negotiations, lie brazenly, or otherwise behave in unusual and problematic ways. They’re often able to do this because journalists today are ill-equipped to stop it or bring attention to it.</p>
<p>While I don’t have a solution, I can at least point out a culprit: partisan media outlets, which put objective journalists in an impossible bind that <a href="http://artscidirectory.case.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/journalistsdilemma.pdf">I call</a> “the journalist’s dilemma.” </p>
<p>Unless they want to be accused of bias, journalists must pretend that the objective truth is always the precise midpoint between the Democrats’ and Republicans’ positions based on the premise that the parties are equally extreme, equally dishonest, and equally guilty of all other political sins. </p>
<p>But to quote “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP5O_NUhrK0">Porgy and Bess</a>,” it ain’t necessarily so. And when it’s not, there isn’t much that journalists can do about it. </p>
<h2>Degrees of dishonesty matter</h2>
<p>The problem is opinion-based journalists – not merely their behavior, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2015/02/26/bill-reilly-and-growth-partisan-media/SiTny61lsaOFav0QV7szwK/story.html">but their proliferation</a>. </p>
<p>Gone are the days when the public was limited to a few broadcast networks and a few newspapers striving for some form of balance. Today, news consumers can choose from Fox News, MSNBC and Internet news sources of every imaginable persuasion.</p>
<p>Simply by occupying so much space in the media landscape, party-aligned media make it difficult for voters to distinguish between valid criticism of one party and biased reporting from a partisan shill. </p>
<p>In so doing, partisan media make it possible – and worse yet, rational – for voters to dismiss any one-sided criticism as biased, thereby enabling extremism and dishonesty.</p>
<p>Some lies are bipartisan. For example, many politicians will underestimate the cost of their favorite programs, and overestimate their benefits. </p>
<p>Take the architect of modern Republican budgetary policy, Speaker Paul Ryan. While he insists that his goal is to reduce the deficit, his budgets specify large tax cuts <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/paul-ryans-budget-plan-more-big-tax-cuts-rich">but don’t detail how they will be paid for</a>. </p>
<p>On the other side of the aisle, Senator Bernie Sanders <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/17/what-has-the-wonks-worried/">has been at odds with liberals like Paul Krugman</a> because his economic plan assumes an absurdly high 5.3 percent rate of economic growth. Part of Krugman’s criticism of Sanders is that he gives critics on the right, as well as those who insist that the parties are equivalent, an opening to argue that Democrats are just as dishonest Republicans.</p>
<p>And then there’s Donald Trump. The man currently leading the Republican presidential contest rose to prominence in the party by promoting the debunked conspiracy theory that President Obama was secretly born in Kenya. </p>
<p>Birtherism is different from conventional, Ryan/Sanders-style dishonesty. It is a lie so absurd that in normal circumstances, journalists can dismiss it. When Trump was pushing the issue in 2011, few journalists in the unaligned press felt the need to grant it plausibility, and they didn’t need to do so because at the time, Trump was little more than a reality TV star. </p>
<p>If he wins the Republican nomination, though, journalists will be unable to dismiss him – no matter how egregiously he lies.</p>
<p>What will Trump say if he gets the nomination? We don’t know, but he has a fondness for peddling absurd conspiracy theories, whether it’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/making-sense-of-the-scalia-conspiracy-theory-55083">suggesting that Justice Scalia was murdered</a> or <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/09/16/donald_trump_suggested_vaccines_cause_autism_during_the_cnn_gop_debate_he.html">advancing anti-vaccination myths</a>.</p>
<p>Then there’s Hillary Clinton. Journalistic fact-checking is not without problems, but it can be useful. PolitiFact currently rates <a href="http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/">28 percent</a> of Clinton’s checked statements as “mostly false” or worse. She isn’t a paragon of honesty, but she didn’t achieve her lead in the Democratic contest by peddling anything comparable to birtherism. </p>
<h2>The bias charge</h2>
<p>Suppose the contest comes down to Clinton and Trump. When covering the race, the unaligned press could obey journalistic norms of balance, and pretend that Clinton’s normal, everyday lies are no different from whatever conspiracy theories Trump might embrace. </p>
<p>The problem is that doing so would not only allow the more egregious liar to escape punishment, but it would actually give candidates incentives to tell even crazier lies. After all, if nobody will call you more dishonest than your opponent, why constrain yourself to the truth?</p>
<p>On the other hand, journalists could point out that one candidate is an ordinary liar, and the other’s dishonesty is world-class. </p>
<p>We know what happens next – the latter complains about media bias. Consider the backlash against Candy Crowley when she intervened on President Obama’s behalf during a 2012 presidential debate. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gfmKpA30Xeo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">CNN’s Candy Crowley corrects Mitt Romney during a 2012 debate.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both parties must agree on presidential debate moderators, and Republicans <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/02/debate-co-chair-mistake-to-have-candy-crowley-moderate-presidential-debate-157380">will never again agree to let Crowley moderate a debate</a>. Unless journalists want to face that kind of blowback, they must assert that Democrats and Republicans are always equally honest (or dishonest).</p>
<p>Most importantly, what about voters? If a journalist calls one candidate a liar – and that candidate calls the journalist a shill for his opponent – whom should a voter believe? </p>
<p>A voter can think one of two things. Either one candidate is a bigger liar than the other, or the journalist is biased. </p>
<p>But if the media landscape is littered with partisans while the unaligned press continually tells us that both parties are equally dishonest, then the voter’s reasonable conclusion will be that both candidates are equally dishonest, and anyone saying otherwise is just a partisan operative. Distressingly, voters are being rational when they discount one-sided criticism.</p>
<p>And it gets worse. The more often conventional journalists insist that both parties are equally guilty of all sins in order to avoid accusations of bias, the more voters believe it. The more they believe it, the more likely they are to discount any future claims that one party is more dishonest. The whole thing is a vicious cycle.</p>
<h2>Partisan enablers</h2>
<p>Notice that the partisan shills create the problem by existing rather than taking any direct action. </p>
<p>Sean Hannity will always criticize the Democrat and defend the Republican. Al Sharpton will do the reverse. The latter <a href="http://www.salon.com/2011/07/27/sharpton_10/">even admitted</a> that he would never speak ill of President Obama in a 2011 interview with “60 Minutes.”</p>
<p>So if a journalist calls Trump a liar, should voters believe it? Or should they conclude that the journalist is a Democratic shill, like Al Sharpton?<br>
Notice, too, that Sean Hannity is not the one who helps a Republican get away with lying. Al Sharpton enables Republican liars by making it credible for Republicans to accuse any journalists criticizing them of being Democratic shills, like Sharpton. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton could lie as brazenly as she wants, and accuse anyone who criticizes her of being part of the “vast, right wing conspiracy” (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vast_right-wing_conspiracy">to use the phrase</a> the Clintons popularized in the 1990s). Since Sean Hannity really will call her a liar no matter what, unaligned journalists can only go so far without looking like conspirators. Hannity’s existence merely enables Clinton, if she chooses to go down that path. </p>
<p>Is there a way out? We found one before. In the 19th century, newspapers were party-owned operations who made no pretense to independence or objectivity. The modern concept of journalism didn’t come into being until <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/muckraker">the muckracking era</a> at the beginning of the 20th century – in particular, the work of Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens and others who became the progenitors of investigative journalism.</p>
<p>We now operate in something closer to the old system, with a media landscape infested with party-aligned outlets. However, many don’t even acknowledge their leanings, complicating voters’ decisions.</p>
<p>It is possible, though, that Trump changes the rules of the game. </p>
<p><a href="http://theunmutual.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-media-donald-trump-and-andy.html">As I have written elsewhere</a>, the journalistic challenge of trying to interview Trump, who is as much performer as candidate, makes his relationship with the press uniquely conflicted. If his party fails to unify around him, journalists may have political “cover” to point out his more blatant dishonesty.</p>
<p>However, they do so at risk to themselves – a risk created by the mere existence of partisan journalism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Buchler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A partisan media landscape has made it almost impossible for journalists to avoid charges of bias when calling out a candidate’s dishonesty.Justin Buchler, Associate Professor of Political Science, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/530422016-02-02T00:00:00Z2016-02-02T00:00:00ZWe can’t trust common sense but we can trust science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108257/original/image-20160115-7357-19upv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">You can't rely on common sense.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/ra2studio</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When a group of Australians was asked why they believed climate change was not happening, about one in three (36.5%) said it was “common sense”, according to a <a href="https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/pub?list=SEA&pid=csiro:EP158008">report published</a> last year by the CSIRO. This was the most popular reason for their opinion, with only 11.3% saying their belief that climate change was not happening was based on scientific research.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the same study found one in four (25.5%) cited “common sense” for their belief that climate change was happening, but was natural. And nearly one in five (18.9%) said it was “common sense” that climate change was happening and it was human-induced.</p>
<p>It seems the greater the rejection of climate science, the greater the reliance on common sense as a guiding principle.</p>
<p>Former prime minister Tony Abbott also appealed to “common sense” when <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-defends-common-sense-in-attack-on-gay-marriage-during-speech-to-us-alliance-defending-freedom-20160128-gmgidu.html">arguing against gay marriage</a> recently.</p>
<p>But what do we mean by an appeal to common sense? Presumably it’s an appeal to rationality of some sort, perhaps a rationality that forms the basis of more complex reasoning. Whatever it is, we might understand it better by considering a few things about our psychology.</p>
<h2>It’s only rational</h2>
<p>It’s an interesting phenomenon that no one laments his or her lack of rationality. We might complain of having a poor memory, or of being no good at maths, but no one thinks they are irrational.</p>
<p>Worse than this, we all think we’re the exemplar of the rational person (go on, admit it) and, if only everyone could see the world as clearly as we do, then all would be well.</p>
<p>Rather than being thought of as the type of reasoning everyone would converge on after thoughtful reflection, however, common sense too often just means the kind of sense we individually have. And anyone who agrees with us must also, logically, have it. </p>
<p>But more likely, as Albert Einstein <a href="http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/29/common-sense/">supposedly put it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] common sense is actually nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind prior to the age of eighteen.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, common sense is indeed very common, it’s just that we all have a different idea of what it is.</p>
<h2>Thinking that feels right</h2>
<p>The appeal to common sense, therefore, is usually nothing more than an appeal to thinking that just feels right. But what feels right to one person may not feel right to another. </p>
<p>When we say to each other “that sounds right”, or “I like the sound of that”, we are generally not testing someone’s argument for validity and soundness as much as seeing if we simply like their conclusion.</p>
<p>Whether it feels right is usually a reflection of the world view and ideologies we have internalised, and that frame how we <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-facts-alone-dont-change-minds-in-our-big-public-debates-25094">interact with new ideas</a>. When new ideas are in accord with what we already believe, they are more readily accepted. When they are not, they, and the arguments that lead to them, are more readily rejected. </p>
<p>We too often mistake this automatic compatibility testing of new ideas with existing beliefs as an application of common sense. But, in reality, it is more about <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-politicians-dont-want-us-to-think-but-opinions-are-okay-41459">judging than thinking</a>.</p>
<p>As the psychologist and Nobel Laureate <a href="http://kahneman.socialpsychology.org">Daniel Kahneman</a> notes in his book <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/products/9780141033570/thinking-fast-and-slow">Thinking Fast and Slow</a>, when we arrive at conclusions in this way, the outcomes also feel true, regardless of whether they are. We are not psychologically well equipped to judge our own thinking.</p>
<p>We are also highly susceptible to a range of cognitive biases, such as the <a href="http://skepdic.com/availability.html">availability heuristic</a> that preference the first things that come to mind when making decisions or giving weight to evidence. </p>
<p>One way we can check our internal biases and inconsistencies is through the social verification of knowledge, in which we test our ideas in a rigorous and systematic way to see if they make sense not just to us, but to other people. The outstanding example of this socially shared cognition is science. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108111/original/image-20160114-10409-19560xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108111/original/image-20160114-10409-19560xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108111/original/image-20160114-10409-19560xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108111/original/image-20160114-10409-19560xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108111/original/image-20160114-10409-19560xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108111/original/image-20160114-10409-19560xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108111/original/image-20160114-10409-19560xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108111/original/image-20160114-10409-19560xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Social cognition can be powerful.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/en/social-media-monitor-exchange-862133/">Pixabay</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Science is not common sense</h2>
<p>It’s important to realise that science is not about common sense. Nowhere is this more evident than in the worlds of quantum mechanics and relativity, in which our common sense intuitions are hopelessly inadequate to deal with quantum unpredictability and space-time distortions. </p>
<p>But our common sense fails us even in more familiar territory. For centuries, it seemed to people that the Earth could not possibly be moving, and must therefore be at the centre of the universe. </p>
<p>Many students still assume that an object in motion through space must have a constant force acting on it, an idea that contradicts <a href="https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/newton1g.html">Netwon’s first law</a>. Some people think that the Earth has gravity because it spins.</p>
<p>And, to return to my opening comment, some people think that their common sense applied to observations of the weather carries more weight on climate change than the entire body of scientific evidence on the subject. </p>
<p>Science is not the embodiment of individual common sense, it is the exemplar of rational collaboration. These are very different things.</p>
<p>It is not that individual scientists are immune from the cognitive biases and tendencies to <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/how-scientists-fool-themselves-and-how-they-can-stop-1.18517">fool themselves</a> that we are all subject to. It is rather that the process of science produces the checks and balances that prevent these individual flaws from flourishing as they do in some other areas of human activity. </p>
<p>In science, the highest unit of cognition is not the individual, it is the community of scientific enquiry. </p>
<h2>Thinking well is a social skill</h2>
<p>That does not mean that individuals are not capable of excellent thinking, nor does it mean no individual is rational. But the extent to which individuals can do this on their own is a function of how well integrated they are with communities of systematic inquiry in the first place. You can’t learn to think well by yourself.</p>
<p>In matters of science at least, those who value their common sense over methodological, collaborative investigation imagine themselves to be more free in their thinking, unbound by involvement with the group, but in reality they are tightly bound by their capabilities and perspectives. </p>
<p>We are smarter together than we are individually, and perhaps that’s just common sense.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Peter Ellerton will be online today, Tuesday February 2, 2016, to answer your questions or comments on common sense. Here are the times for Australia’s states and territories:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><em>2pm and 3pm (Qld)</em></li>
<li><em>3pm to 4pm (NSW, Tas, Vic and ACT)</em></li>
<li><em>2.30pm to 3.30pm (SA)</em></li>
<li><em>1.30pm to 2.30pm (NT)</em></li>
<li><em>Noon to 1pm (WA)</em></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ellerton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How often have you been urged to use common sense during an argument or a debate? The problem is, common sense is an unreliable indicator of truth.Peter Ellerton, Lecturer in Critical Thinking, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/414592015-05-11T03:03:07Z2015-05-11T03:03:07ZWhy politicians don’t want us to think, but opinions are okay<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80972/original/image-20150508-19469-1iwqqb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Politicians don't want us thinking too hard about what they say and do.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutsmuts/4695658106/">Flickr/Mutiara Karina</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s time to gear up for the next election cycle, with the upcoming Australian federal budget the whistle for kick-off. So what can we expect from our politicians this time around?</p>
<p>One thing has become a given in Australian politics: we will not be asked to think. That doesn’t mean we won’t, of course. But don’t wait for the invitation to arrive in the mail.</p>
<p>The last thing politicians want is for us to analyse, synthesise, infer and evaluate. We might end up insisting they do the same, or that they outline their thinking for us to evaluate. </p>
<p>Even worse, thinking voters are unpredictable, and that makes them dangerous. </p>
<p>It is far more beneficial to politicians if they only ask us to judge. People are far happier if they are asked to judge the merit of a course of action than if they are asked to analyse an argument. </p>
<p>Rigorous engagement with a complex issue is difficult and time-consuming. Judgements are frequently instantaneous and satisfying. It is easy to imagine we are thinking critically when we are merely leaping to conclusions. </p>
<h2>Opinions on everything</h2>
<p>The Nobel prize-wining psychologist <a href="http://kahneman.socialpsychology.org">Daniel Kahneman</a> notes that it is an amazing thing that humans are never stumped. Give us an issue and we will happily give you our opinion, even if we really should defer it to a time when we have done more research.</p>
<p>We make subconscious judgements as readily as we breathe, and just about as frequently.</p>
<p>Our preference for judgement over analysis and evaluation explains, for example, our preference for stories about celebrities and royal babies over significant scientific breakthroughs. The actions of celebrities are rarely things we need to think about, we only need to form opinions. </p>
<p>Judging allows us to form immediate, satisfying and communicable conclusions; the process of analysis and evaluation requires us to do some hard intellectual yards, with perhaps no clear outcome.</p>
<p>Judgements are largely intuitive and, unlike analysis and evaluation, they use little <a href="http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/dual-process-theory-Evans_Stanovich_PoPS13.pdf">working memory</a>, and do not demand our sustained and directed attention.</p>
<p>When judgements are made in this intuitive manner they are often based on factors we are not aware of – factors that can be deliberately manipulated to influence the outcome.</p>
<p>This lack of control in our decision-making is <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions?language=en">established knowledge</a> in the fields of cognitive science and psychology.</p>
<h2>The language of manipulation</h2>
<p>Listen carefully to the rhetoric around the federal budget. You will not be asked to analyse its logical structure. You will be asked to judge its basic premises, and those premises will be framed using a language that best suits a political purpose.</p>
<p>The language of “lifters” and “leaners” is a classic example that was used by the Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey towards the end of last year’s <a href="http://www.joehockey.com/media/speeches/details.aspx?s=129">budget speech</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As Australians, we must not leave our children worse off. That’s not fair. That is not our way. We are a nation of lifters, not leaners.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Place people in either category of “lifters” and “leaners” and it follows that you can judge their merit, and hence the benefits of a particular budget strategy relating to them.</p>
<p>Most of the substance of political discourse is about encouraging us to make value-based decisions rather than outlining arguments for us to evaluate. Simply speaking, our judgements are usually about values, while arguments are about analysis.</p>
<p>The problem with this is that it opens the door to a range of <a href="http://georgelakoff.com/2014/08/18/new-book-the-all-new-dont-think-of-an-elephant-know-your-values-and-frame-the-debate/">language framing effects</a> designed simply to manipulate our judgement-making and bypass our thinking. Political language discourages reasoning and encourages and rewards judging. </p>
<p>If a particular issue is regarded as too difficult to engage with or ideologically unpalatable, it can be labelled “un-Australian” and people will make judgements on that basis. The use of the terms “illegal” and “queue-jumper” invite us to judge, not to consider.</p>
<p>If the work of scientists results in conclusions that are counter to any party’s ideology, rather than calling them “scientists” (and ask that people engage with the argument), they could be labelled “activists”. It won’t be consensus, it will be <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/letters/groupthink-informs-ipcc-findings/story-fn558imw-1226729521258">groupthink</a>. People will more readily judge on that emotive value base than rigorously interrogate the issue.</p>
<p>As the British writer George Orwell <a href="http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/">notes</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our newspapers are also masters of this art. Look at the headlines and ask if you are being asked to think or to judge. Look also at the accompanying photographs and ask the same question.</p>
<p>Journalists, to their credit, often ask questions that demand a reasoned response, but the art of the politician is to give an answer based on values and to invite judgement. </p>
<p>The most common tactic of this sort is to move from the issue itself to a choice between the two major parties. Re-framing an issue as a choice between two options, using the language of values, is a way to avoid swimming in the sometimes murky and difficult cognitive waters of real-life decisions. </p>
<p>It’s no wonder that politicians prefer to spend time on emotive issues, posing in front of flags, monuments and symbols of national significance rather than engaged in reason debate with each other or members of the voting public. </p>
<h2>Walking the hard path</h2>
<p>The truth is, we do not like to think too hard. If politicians can give us a way to come to a conclusion that feels substantive and doesn’t require an investment in time or energy, we jump at it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80802/original/image-20150507-1210-2toeg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80802/original/image-20150507-1210-2toeg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80802/original/image-20150507-1210-2toeg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80802/original/image-20150507-1210-2toeg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80802/original/image-20150507-1210-2toeg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80802/original/image-20150507-1210-2toeg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80802/original/image-20150507-1210-2toeg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80802/original/image-20150507-1210-2toeg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We prefer easy, intuitive decisions to hard, sustained thinking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/68502717@N08/7155138495/">Flickr/Sasquatch I</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s hardly their fault if their strategy works. When we get it from the media at the same time, the strength of the effect is overwhelming.</p>
<p>So what does this mean for our democracy? And what does it mean for election time in particular?</p>
<p>Well, awareness does not always bring defence, but it’s a start. We should subject political statements and media headlines to this simple question: am I being asked to think, or to judge? And then we should ask ourselves why?</p>
<p>A refusal on the part of the electorate to go down the path others are setting up for us, to think independently about issues and to hold politicians to a rational account of their behaviour would be a good start. </p>
<p>After all, anything less would be un-Australian.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41459/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ellerton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What you make of the federal budget will be based on quick judgement rather than any careful analysis. And that’s just the way politicians like it.Peter Ellerton, Lecturer in Critical Thinking, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/181432014-01-15T19:14:03Z2014-01-15T19:14:03ZWhat you think is right may actually be wrong – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38798/original/44mnz64n-1389321123.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">I think, but am I wrong?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/seatbelt67</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We like to think that we reach conclusions by reviewing facts, weighing evidence and analysing arguments. But this is not how humans usually operate, particularly when decisions are important or need to be made quickly.</p>
<p>What we usually do is arrive at a conclusion independently of conscious reasoning and then, and only if required, search for reasons as to why we might be right.</p>
<p>The first process, drawing a conclusion from evidence or facts, is called inferring; the second process, searching for reasons as to why we might believe something to be true, is called rationalising. </p>
<h2>Rationalise vs infer</h2>
<p>That we rationalise more than we infer seems counter-intuitive, or at least uncomfortable, to a species that prides itself on its ability to reason, but it is borne out by the work of many researchers, including the US psychologist and <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2002/kahneman-bio.html">Nobel Laureate</a> <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/%7Ekahneman/">Daniel Kahneman</a> (most recently in his book <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Thinking_Fast_and_Slow.html?id=ZuKTvERuPG8C">Thinking Fast and Slow</a>). </p>
<p>We tend to prefer conclusions that fit our existing world-view, and that don’t require us to change a pleasant and familiar narrative. We are also more inclined to accept these conclusions, intuitively leaping to them when they are presented, and to offer resistance to conclusions that require us to change or seriously examine existing beliefs.</p>
<p>There are many ways in which our brains help us to do this.</p>
<h2>Consider global warming</h2>
<p>Is global warming too difficult to understand? Your brain makes a substitution for you: what do you think of environmentalists? It then transfers that (often emotional) impression, positive or negative, to the issue of global warming and presents a conclusion to you in sync with your existing views.</p>
<p>Your brain also helps to make sense of situations in which it has minimal data to work with by creating associations between pieces of information.</p>
<p>If we hear the words “refugee” and “welfare” together, we cannot help but weave a narrative that makes some sort of coherent story (what Kahneman calls <em>associative coherence</em>). The more we hear this, the more familiar and ingrained the narrative. Indeed, the process of creating a coherent narrative has been shown to be more convincing to people than facts, even when the facts behind the narrative are shown to be wrong (understood as the <a href="http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/1979-1984/80ALR.html">perseverance of social theories</a> and involved in the <a href="http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/">Backfire Effect</a>).</p>
<p>Now, if you are a politician or a political advisor, knowing this sort of thing can give you a powerful tool. It is far more effective to create, modify or reinforce particular narratives that fit particular world-views, and then give people reasons as to why they may be true, than it is to provide evidence and ask people to come to their own conclusions.</p>
<p>It is easier to help people rationalise than it is to ask them to infer. More plainly, it is easier to lay down a path for people to follow than it is to allow them to find their own. Happily for politicians, this is what our brains like doing.</p>
<h2>How politicians frame issues</h2>
<p>This can be done in two steps. The first is to frame an issue in a way that reinforces or modifies a particular perspective. The cognitive scientist <a href="http://georgelakoff.com">George Lakoff</a> highlighted the use of the phrase “tax relief” by the American political right in the 1990s.</p>
<p>Consider how this positions any debate around taxation levels. Rather than taxes being a “community contribution” the word “relief” suggests a burden that should be lifted, an unfair load that we carry, perhaps beyond our ability to bear.</p>
<p>The secret, and success, of this campaign was to get both the opposing parties and the media to use this language, hence immediately biasing any discussion.</p>
<p>Interestingly, it was also an initiative of the American Republican party to <a href="http://woods.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/files/gw-language-choices.pdf">rephrase the issue</a> of “global warming” into one of “climate change”, which seemed more benign at the time.</p>
<h2>Immigration becomes security</h2>
<p>In recent years we have seen immigration as an issue disappear, it is now framed almost exclusively as an issue of “national security”. All parties and the media now talk about it in this language.</p>
<p>Once the issue is appropriately framed, substitution and associations can be made for us. Talk of national security allows us to talk about borders, which may be porous, or even crumbling. This evokes emotional reactions that can be suitably manipulated.</p>
<p>Budgets can be “in crisis” or in “emergency” conditions, suggesting the need for urgent intervention, or rescue missions. Once such positions are established, all that is needed are some reasons to believe them.</p>
<p>The great thing about rationalisation is that we get to select the reasons we want – that is, those that will support our existing conclusions. Our <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eachaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Confirmation_bias.html">confirmation bias</a>, a tendency to notice more easily those reasons or examples that confirm our existing ideas, selects just those reasons that suit our purpose. The job of the politician, of course, is to provide them.</p>
<p>Kahneman notes that the more familiar a statement or image, the more it is accepted. It is the reason that messages are repeated <em>ad nauseam</em>, and themes are paraphrased and recycled in every media appearance. Pretty soon, they seem like our own.</p>
<h2>How to think differently</h2>
<p>So what does this mean for a democracy in which citizens need to be independent thinkers and autonomous actors? Well, it shows that the onus is not just on politicians to change their behaviour (after all, one can hardly blame them for doing what works), but also on us to continually question our own positions and judgements, to test ourselves by examining our beliefs and recognising rationalisation when we engage in it.</p>
<p>More than this, it means public debate, through the media in particular, needs to challenge preconceptions and resist the trend to simple assertion. We are what we are, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work better with it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ellerton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We like to think that we reach conclusions by reviewing facts, weighing evidence and analysing arguments. But this is not how humans usually operate, particularly when decisions are important or need to…Peter Ellerton, Lecturer in Critical Thinking, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/181292013-09-11T13:30:10Z2013-09-11T13:30:10ZBritain should stay in the EU … for science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31187/original/mfj5rzwf-1378904865.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cameron bonding with Barroso would make scientists happy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dominic Lipinski/PA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At a time of much business debate around whether the UK should remain in the European Union (EU), there is one critical area being overlooked regarding the relationship – science.</p>
<p>With a growing appreciation that the <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6a4bce66-c886-11e2-acc6-00144feab7de.html#axzz2X7X2qNXH">financial markets are something of a casino</a>, many countries are getting wise to the importance of research and innovation as a <a href="http://scienceisvital.org.uk/2010/09/28/key-messages/">high-return solid investment for the future</a>. Much of this comes from the start-up tech companies increasingly emerging from, or feeding off, universities and publicly-funded science. Critically, the EU is providing the UK with a scientific boon that is set to grow.</p>
<p>European science has always been high quality, but fragmented by the patchwork of borders. Efforts to provide a central funding mechanism for collaboration have traditionally been characterised by <a href="http://hsr.sagepub.com/content/18/3/182.long">painful “Eurocracy”</a>. Added to this, European academia has been more separated from commercial partnerships than in the US.</p>
<p>Over the past ten years, however, EU science has slowly coalesced into an impressive force which now looks to become a genuine world leader. The EU already outstrips the US for academic output – by about 20% <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IP.JRN.ARTC.SC/countries/EU-US?display=graph">according to World Bank data</a>, partly thanks to the EU being bigger than the US by 200m people.</p>
<p>The European Commission has been a driving force of science growth, consistently increasing the EU science budget. In his State of the European Union speech today, Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said: “we need an industrial policy fit for the 21st century.” A key piece of this is their new <a href="http://prezi.com/1fogw2zvbiek/horizon-2020-officialversion/%22%22">€70 billion Horizon 2020 programme</a> for 2014-2020, where there are substantial efforts to <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/european-deal-cuts-red-tape-1.13322">strip out bureaucracy</a> and invest in future-focused science infrastructure. There is also a drive to link European research with industry – <a href="https://theconversation.com/using-small-business-to-turn-science-into-eu-growth-15825">small innovative businesses in particular</a> – to get maximum commercial mileage out of research “excellence”. Unknown to the wider public, there is a buzz of “can do” around these plans that you wouldn’t usually associate with European policymakers.</p>
<p>The UK has contributed many ideas to the new European science push, has reaped a lion’s share of the communal funding, and due to its prowess, sits in a driving seat. As EU science gets set to take off, abandoning that seat would be a colossal error. It would significantly hurt the UK’s global competitiveness.</p>
<h2>What does the UK get from the EU?</h2>
<p>The UK makes up about 12% of the EU population and contributes some <a href="http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/uploads/Russell-Group-response-to-Balance-of-competences-Research-and-Development-consultation.pdf">11.5% to the budget</a>. However, the science funding that is awarded centrally from the European Commission is not based on population – it is based on research “excellence”. UK science is excellent by any standard and UK institutions win some <a href="http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/uploads/Russell-Group-response-to-Balance-of-competences-Research-and-Development-consultation.pdf">16% of all the EU funding</a>. The UK is particularly strong in areas such as health, leading <a href="http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/06/25/eurpub.ckt075.full">20% of all projects</a> and winning <a href="http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/uploads/Russell-Group-response-to-Balance-of-competences-Research-and-Development-consultation.pdf">20% of the prestigious European Research Council funds</a>.</p>
<p>Whereas the UK government’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23065763">budget for science is frozen</a> at a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/occams-corner/2012/aug/21/how-generous-science-budget">lamentable £4.6 billion</a> annually (despite <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/stephen-caddick/george-osborne-spending-review_b_3488887.html">George Osborne’s “personal commitment”</a>), the EU’s upcoming €10 billion per annum <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framework_Programmes_for_Research_and_Technological_Development">represents a 35% increase on previous funding</a>. If the UK wins 16% of those funds, that’s a big slice atop our meagre £4.6 billion. It means that unlike the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/29/sequestration-scientists_n_3825128.html">science cuts in the US</a>, UK science has more money coming its way. And that’s not thanks to George Osborne. It’s thanks to the European Commission.</p>
<p>The EU also lets UK researchers play with “big science”, for example the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Space_Agency">European Space Agency</a>, or the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-22404201">discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN</a>. There are countless projects that pool resources across Europe to forge world-leading science. Scientific articles with international authorship also get more citations than exclusively domestic papers. The UK has rapidly increased in this department and now <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7451/full/497557a.html">>50% its papers are international (the US is around 35%)</a>. European science is getting big – and UK researchers are deeply involved. </p>
<p>Lastly, let’s not forget the influx of researcher talent from the mainland. Sure we can congratulate “excellent science”, but we must also thank international collaborations and the EU’s <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/">Marie Curie programme</a>, which facilitates researcher mobility around Europe.</p>
<p>Some will argue that there are a handful of countries outside the EU that contribute finances to the EU science program just like EU countries. They can coordinate projects too and reap all the same benefits. In fact, they do very well. Can’t the UK just follow their model?</p>
<p>The key difference here is size. The UK is no small partner looking only for peripheral participation. We get away with an exceptional deal on a large scale (<a href="http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/06/25/eurpub.ckt075.full">where eastern Europe, for example, is missing out badly</a>) because British science is currently deeply involved in forging the European science direction.</p>
<p>The UK’s driving seat within the EU is a win-win for our science and innovation. Pulling out of the central team would break a bond that would be very difficult to recover.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Galsworthy has previously worked on EU-funded international projects.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Browne is Head of European Research & Innovation at UCL</span></em></p>At a time of much business debate around whether the UK should remain in the European Union (EU), there is one critical area being overlooked regarding the relationship – science. With a growing appreciation…Michael Galsworthy, Senior Research Associate in Health Services Research, UCLMichael Browne, Head of European Research & Innovation, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/99782012-10-04T20:28:14Z2012-10-04T20:28:14ZNo, you’re not entitled to your opinion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16183/original/f2dbsxtz-1349328229.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1280%2C929&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The ABC's popular Q And A show revolves around opinion. But not all opinions are of equal value.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC TV</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every year, I try to do at least two things with my students at least once. First, I make a point of addressing them as “philosophers” – a bit cheesy, but hopefully it <a href="http://secure.pdcnet.org/teachphil/content/teachphil_2012_0035_0002_0143_0169">encourages active learning</a>.</p>
<p>Secondly, I say something like this: “I’m sure you’ve heard the expression ‘everyone is entitled to their opinion.’ Perhaps you’ve even said it yourself, maybe to head off an argument or bring one to a close. Well, as soon as you walk into this room, it’s no longer true. You are not entitled to your opinion. You are only entitled to what you can argue for.”</p>
<p>A bit harsh? Perhaps, but philosophy teachers owe it to our students to teach them how to construct and defend an argument – and to recognize when a belief has become indefensible.</p>
<p>The problem with “I’m entitled to my opinion” is that, all too often, it’s used to shelter beliefs that should have been abandoned. It becomes shorthand for “I can say or think whatever I like” – and by extension, continuing to argue is somehow disrespectful. And this attitude feeds, I suggest, into the false equivalence between experts and non-experts that is an increasingly pernicious feature of our public discourse.</p>
<p>Firstly, what’s an opinion?</p>
<p>Plato distinguished between opinion or common belief (doxa) and certain knowledge, and that’s still a workable distinction today: unlike “1+1=2” or “there are no square circles,” an opinion has a degree of subjectivity and uncertainty to it. But “opinion” ranges from tastes or preferences, through views about questions that concern most people such as prudence or politics, to views grounded in technical expertise, such as legal or scientific opinions.</p>
<p>You can’t really argue about the first kind of opinion. I’d be silly to insist that you’re wrong to think strawberry ice cream is better than chocolate. The problem is that sometimes we implicitly seem to take opinions of the second and even the third sort to be unarguable in the way questions of taste are. Perhaps that’s one reason (no doubt there are others) why enthusiastic amateurs think they’re entitled to disagree with climate scientists and immunologists and have their views “respected.”</p>
<p>Meryl Dorey is the leader of the Australian Vaccination Network, which despite the name is vehemently anti-vaccine. Ms. Dorey has no medical qualifications, but <a href="http://www.essentialbaby.com.au/baby/baby-health/adverse-reactions-why-some-parents-fear-vaccines-20120507-1y7w7.html">argues</a> that if Bob Brown is allowed to comment on nuclear power despite not being a scientist, she should be allowed to comment on vaccines. But no-one assumes Dr. Brown is an authority on the physics of nuclear fission; his job is to comment on the policy responses to the science, not the science itself.</p>
<p>So what does it mean to be “entitled” to an opinion?</p>
<p>If “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion” just means no-one has the right to stop people thinking and saying whatever they want, then the statement is true, but fairly trivial. No one can stop you saying that vaccines cause autism, no matter how many times that claim has been disproven.</p>
<p>But if ‘entitled to an opinion’ means ‘entitled to have your views treated as serious candidates for the truth’ then it’s pretty clearly false. And this too is a distinction that tends to get blurred.</p>
<p>On Monday, the ABC’s Mediawatch program took WIN-TV Wollongong to task for running a story on a measles outbreak which included comment from – you guessed it – Meryl Dorey. In a response to a viewer complaint, WIN said that the story was “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/1235_win.pdf">accurate, fair and balanced and presented the views of the medical practitioners and of the choice groups</a>.” But this implies an equal right to be heard on a matter in which only one of the two parties has the relevant expertise. Again, if this was about policy responses to science, this would be reasonable. But the so-called “debate” here is about the science itself, and the “choice groups” simply don’t have a claim on air time if that’s where the disagreement is supposed to lie.</p>
<p>Mediawatch host Jonathan Holmes was considerably more blunt: “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3601416.htm">there’s evidence, and there’s bulldust</a>,” and it’s not part of a reporter’s job to give bulldust equal time with serious expertise.</p>
<p>The response from anti-vaccination voices was predictable. On the Mediawatch site, Ms. Dorey accused the ABC of “openly calling for censorship of a scientific debate.” This response confuses not having your views taken seriously with not being allowed to hold or express those views at all – or to borrow a phrase from Andrew Brown, it “<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2012/aug/03/tainted-case-against-gay-marriage">confuses losing an argument with losing the right to argue</a>.” Again, two senses of “entitlement” to an opinion are being conflated here.</p>
<p>So next time you hear someone declare they’re entitled to their opinion, ask them why they think that. Chances are, if nothing else, you’ll end up having a more enjoyable conversation that way.</p>
<p><em>Read more from Patrick Stokes: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ethics-of-bravery-why-a-black-saturday-hero-lost-his-award-7794">The ethics of bravery</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9978/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Stokes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Every year, I try to do at least two things with my students at least once. First, I make a point of addressing them as “philosophers” – a bit cheesy, but hopefully it encourages active learning. Secondly…Patrick Stokes, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.