Detailed Abstractions

As most know, on January 8th, in a grocery store parking lot, a gunman, opened fire on a small political gathering.   He wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 17 others, and killed 6, including a 9 year old child.

Our media?  Apparently falling all over themselves to be the very first to diagnose the entire event down to political ideology, caused by heightened rhetoric, hopefully with easily attacked names attached, all without anything remotely resembling even a slight understanding of the shooter.

It is impressive in not only how fast this meme started, but also the complete coverage of it.  Almost anywhere you read this news or watching it discussed on tv, the attempt to blame is either extremely obvious or being discussed as being extremely obvious.

Liberals blame Sarah Palin, which the right absolutely abhors….  And besides, according to them, the shooter was a leftist anyway (irony?).

But wait!  If you don’t like that, it’s ok, because really the level of vitriol is the real problem.  Ask the Collegian, this conversation has to take place….  after of course the author talks about Glen Beck and Fox News’ level of rhetoric (irony?).

Irregardless, this conversation is important – just listen to the investigating sheriff, and you suddenly learn it’s Rush Limbaugh’s fault.

(side bar: Notice that word “investigating” always precedes the Sheriff… as if the mere act that the crazy guy with a gun pulled the trigger in his jurisdiction, gives him the right, knowledge, or understanding of political rhetoric and its ramifications)

Ahh, the Sheriff, proving, just like Katrina where rumors ran rampant due in large part to public officials, the propensity for public officials to cast off the shackles of thoughtful and deliberate actions and act irrationally.  Just listen to the Sheriff’s words “I have a feeling” and “millions agree” – as if this would be considered “proof” of anything.  Not to mention the fact that a public official should be duty-bound and intelligent enough to know not to make things worse through public speculation.

 But I digress, because in case you didn’t know, there’s a reason for his behavior too.  The Sheriff is a leftist.  & like other leftists, whether the level of rhetoric is high or low is meaningless, because it’s time for gun control.

Neither of which will work of course, because the real problem is that violence is rooted in American culture – so basically it’s everyone’s fault….

Though Jon Stewart assures us it’s not the level of rhetoric which is to blame, & he does have friends; according to a recent poll, 60% agree with this thought as well.

But let’s do note at least one decent posting on the subject, discussing this tragedy in light of other mass murderers (small mass, think group), including the divergence between what we thought we knew instantly and what we found out (here).

Aside from the few however, it appears stating openly “we don’t know enough and will not speculate” isn’t near as interesting nor attention grabbing as the fear inducing meme that speech, tv, political rhetoric, guns, or anything else which is all around you, is in fact out to get you.

It just goes on and on and on and on….  & just like the debates about which party is more closely linked with the actions of Hitler; is it Bushitler the warmonger?  Or the Democrats and the “can’t smoke in private restaurants” crowd? 

Or arguments about who Jesus would vote for; is it the downtrodden protectors the Democrats or the “teach a man to fish” Republicans?

Or what Jesus would drive; a Prius for the environment or an F150 for a carpenter? 

All impossible to answer, all nothing more than mere guilt/credit by association, yet the fight is feverish as many try to answer this very question about one lone gunman.

& All of it presented to you, with the air of intelligent thought and analysis, by the self-proclaimed 4th Estate.

One of the main reasons people tend to fail at analysis, is that they hold certain beliefs which are nothing more than myths.  When myths are readily believed however, evidence that seems to back that myth up is actively sought out and usually exaggerated.

What’s interesting in this case – is that we have two writers, from Naked Capitalism Blog & Alternet somewhat describing confirmation bias, but almost ironically show that their thinking fails from the same biases they wish to highlight.

What did they proffer (whole thing here via Naked Capitalism and here via Alternet)?

They state they are attempting to find out why people’s opinions don’t change even in the face of competing facts.  To do this, they use a study of selected people who believe Saddam was behind 9/11.  Since GWB, the 9/11 commission, and all other sources state this isn’t the case, then trying to understand why someone believes it is a noble goal and the research could potentially help understand human thinking.

Of course both pieces weren’t honestly seeking the answer, so in this case little can be gathered.  The good news however is that studies like this have been done before and we already understand to some degree why people don’t seem rational on certain topics.

First, they start off by implying that investors are not rational and do so by linking to a simple Google search.  Lazy sure, but most studies I’ve seen dealing with rationality of the individual begin with the false assumption there is some common answer to begin which every rational individual would chose.  Humans however define rationality by their values and desires;  therefore, their actions will also be very unique based upon those individual factors.

Leaving that aside, their point was to say, not only are investors irrational, but so are these people for these reasons (Naked Capitalism):

• [1] Many Americans felt an urgent need to seek justification for a war already in progress

• [2] Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe.

• [3] “For the most part people completely ignore contrary information.”

• [4] “The study demonstrates voters’ ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information”

• [5] People get deeply attached to their beliefs, and form emotional attachments that get wrapped up in their personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter.

• [6] “We refer to this as ‘inferred justification, because for these voters, the sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war.

• [7] “People were basically making up justifications for the fact that we were at war”

• [8] “They wanted to believe in the link [between 9/11 and Iraq] because it helped them make sense of a current reality. So voters’ ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information, whether we think that is good or bad for democratic practice, does at least demonstrate an impressive form of creativity.

Their premises basically fall into two types:

1. Those premises that have been proven true about the vast majority of the population in thousands of experiments….
2. & those premises which aren’t necessarily false, but reflect the authors’ thinking as the study and information provided do not lead to the conclusion they readily accept.

Looking at them in this light, we see that 2, 3, & 5 are all easily proven through prior studies and simple observations of current society.  If people didn’t seek out confirming information, Daily Kos, Free Republic, Huffington Post, and many, many other websites would be empty and failing.

For the remaining 5, the study does not bear out their premises.  The study (@ Alternet) demonstrates that even when giving people contrary factual information, many will continue to believe as they do.

However, they only used 49 people and are inferring their reason from justification based upon comments which don’t support their thesis.  The first participant quote they begin with is(via Alternet):

“Well, I bet they say that the commission didn’t have any proof of it,” one subject responded, “but I guess we still can have our opinions and feel that way even though they say that.”

This is a simple reflection of reality, to which the researchers find disturbing.  Why it isn’t disturbing to sane people is that I have yet to know anyone who doesn’t believe somethings which simply aren’t provable or for which factual information to the contrary exists.

To site to easy examples, the number of people who believe the CIA killed Kennedy & those who believe strongly in ancient herbal remedies for which no proof other than anecdotal is ever given.

The second quote the article uses:

Reasoned another: “Saddam, I can’t judge if he did what he’s being accused of, but if Bush thinks he did it, then he did it.”

Is an odd statement to use as it’s semi-meaningless.  When told President Bush stated publicly on a number of occasions that Saddam did not play a role in 9/11 & then that person continues to use that information has other issues than just confirmation bias.   They might honestly be trying to get justification for the war post-war, but I’m not sure by this information.

The third quote they use actually represents their best opportunity for demonstrating that people were rationalizing after the fact:

Others declined to engage the information at all. Most curious to the researchers were the respondents who reasoned that Saddam must have been connected to Sept. 11, because why else would the Bush Administration have gone to war in Iraq?

However, other reasons exist for this as well which have nothing to do with post-justification.   For instance, I might think Saddam is just worthless and any attempt to liberate the people who suffer through his tyranny is a good idea, but still think that GWB must believe it as that’s the only justification I can see.

In that case, it proves my analytical thinking skills as poor because other justifications certainly exist outside of both 9/11 & WMDs, but it necessarily doesn’t prove post-justification.

Additionally, I could think we went to war with Iraq and believe it’s because GWB believed there to be a link, and still disagree with the war itself.

That might seem like an odd statement, but there are in fact people, a small minority to be sure, but people who firmly believed the Taliban support Bin Laden and Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11.  But even with that information, they don’t believe we should’ve gone to war.

Again, that’s a minority view to be sure, but when using it’s existence to disprove the study of 49 people, I believe the weight of my evidence of realistic & feasible alternative theories to the data provided is stronger than theirs.

Regardless of the individual reasons anyone might use to rationalize beliefs for which counter-factual information exists, their data doesn’t support their conclusions that fear & post-justification are major issues.

& with statements like this (via Alternet):

“I do think there’s something to be said about people like Sarah Palin, and even more so Chuck Grassley, supporting this idea of death panels in a national forum,” Hoffman said.

Their biases are easily shown (DA post here sort-of-on death panels).

The simple truth is, the researchers and both articles are failing to reason correctly for the same reason the people they pointed out are failing to reason correctly:  they are seeing evidence which already proves their current world views and beliefs true.

& for whatever this data might show – it certainly isn’t proof of post-justification.  It is only evidence that we all seek out comfort by mitigating the cognitive dissonance (IE – anxiety) which comes from seeing factual information which disagrees with our world view & beliefs.

DA has written about this tendency on Junk Science, Anecdotal evidence in the health care debate & the President & Race.  Additionally, DA has written on echo chambers as they reinforce our thoughts.