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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 7:45 am Post subject: Researcher Condemns Conformity Among His Peers |
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http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/researcher-condemns-conformity-among-his-peers
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�Academics, like teenagers, sometimes don�t have any sense regarding the degree to which they are conformists.�
So says Thomas Bouchard, the Minnesota psychologist known for his study of twins raised apart, in a retirement interview with Constance Holden in the journal Science.
Journalists, of course, are conformists too. So are most other professions. There�s a powerful human urge to belong inside the group, to think like the majority, to lick the boss�s shoes, and to win the group�s approval by trashing dissenters.
The strength of this urge to conform can silence even those who have good reason to think the majority is wrong. You�re an expert because all your peers recognize you as such. But if you start to get too far out of line with what your peers believe, they will look at you askance and start to withdraw the informal title of �expert� they have implicitly bestowed on you. Then you�ll bear the less comfortable label of �maverick,� which is only a few stops short of �scapegoat� or �pariah.�
A remarkable first-hand description of this phenomenon was provided a few months ago by the economist Robert Shiller, co-inventor of the Case-Shiller house price index. Dr. Shiller was concerned about what he saw as an impending house price bubble when he served as an adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York up until 2004.
So why didn�t he burst his lungs warning about the impending collapse of the housing market? �In my position on the panel, I felt the need to use restraint,� he relates. �While I warned about the bubbles I believed were developing in the stock and housing markets, I did so very gently, and felt vulnerable expressing such quirky views. Deviating too far from consensus leaves one feeling potentially ostracized from the group, with the risk that one may be terminated.�
Conformity and group-think are attitudes of particular danger in science, an endeavor that is inherently revolutionary because progress often depends on overturning established wisdom. It�s obvious that least 100 genes must be needed to convert a human or animal cell back to its embryonic state. Or at least it was obvious to almost everyone until Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University showed it could be done with just 4.
,,,
If the brightest minds on Wall Street got suckered by group-think into believing house prices would never fall, what other policies founded on consensus wisdom could be waiting to come unraveled? Global warming, you say? You mean it might be harder to model climate change 20 years ahead than house prices 5 years ahead? Surely not � how could so many climatologists be wrong?
What�s wrong with consensuses is not the establishment of a majority view, which is necessary and legitimate, but the silencing of skeptics. �We still have whole domains we can�t talk about,� Dr. Bouchard said, referring to the psychology of differences between races and sexes. |
I have long assumed that academia is dominated by an extreme form of conformist group think. Journalism too. Given that the entire Western world is pushing very expensive public policy born in the group think of academia, journalism and politics, it is important to remember the nature of the beast. Conformity isn't necessarily consensus. |
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thoreau
Joined: 21 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 8:38 am Post subject: |
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http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/05/futarchy-considered-retarded.html
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| So as soon as you arrive at grad school, you'll discover that no mileage whatsoever is to be attained by actually attacking the half-baked ideas of your peers. Proper career strategy is to build coalitions - not tear them down. Actual, rigorous, adversarial science still exists in a few nooks and crannies. The tradition is remembered. But it is by far the exception. |
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doc_ido
Joined: 03 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 8:32 pm Post subject: |
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Heh. If you look at the thread on the original article, it only takes 5 comments before people are arguing about global warming.
I don't think that Wade's example of Shinya Yamanaka was very apt. He wasn't sidelined by the academic community or considered a "maverick" - he made an important breakthrough in a rapidly expanding field with the full support and encouragement of his peers.
While there certainly are entrenched ideas and preconceptions in the sciences, the first thing anyone is going to say to someone with a startling new theory or process is, "where's the evidence?" That's why the big bang theory displaced the steady state theory, and why cold fusion remains a fringe science. |
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Koveras
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 10:28 pm Post subject: |
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| thoreau wrote: |
http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/05/futarchy-considered-retarded.html
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| So as soon as you arrive at grad school, you'll discover that no mileage whatsoever is to be attained by actually attacking the half-baked ideas of your peers. Proper career strategy is to build coalitions - not tear them down. Actual, rigorous, adversarial science still exists in a few nooks and crannies. The tradition is remembered. But it is by far the exception. |
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That's a damn good blog. Thanks for the link. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:27 am Post subject: ... |
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| Given that the entire Western world is pushing very expensive public policy born in the group think of academia, journalism and politics |
And, if they consensually group-thought their way to a conclusion more to your liking, then everything would be hunky-dory? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:39 am Post subject: Re: ... |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
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| Given that the entire Western world is pushing very expensive public policy born in the group think of academia, journalism and politics |
And, if they consensually group-thought their way to a conclusion more to your liking, then everything would be hunky-dory? |
That doesn't change the fact that academics -- and in fact the vast majority of humans -- behave this way. The article in question is totally correct. That doesn't mean that the conclusions of the majority are necessarily wrong, mind you, just that when they are wrong, it's very difficult for a dissenter who happens to be correct to get anywhere. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:14 am Post subject: ... |
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| That doesn't change the fact that academics -- and in fact the vast majority of humans -- behave this way. The article in question is totally correct. |
I don't believe I said anything about the article being wrong. However, "This is just a bunch of group think" is an argument that can be employed willy nilly against any prevailing thought, and it is. The ID crowd bangs this drum just as loud as the climate change skeptics do. Yet there really is no way of proving any given idea/position is a product of group think until after the fact. Rather, it's a vacuous argument to turn to in the absence of a more substantive one.
So, the carbon market proposal is the result of group think and false consensus? OK, then the anti-carbon marketeers' opposition is the result of group think and their own smaller-scale false consensus. Both of the above positions are equally inane.
That was, and is, my point. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 11:14 am Post subject: |
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| Mises: I just read your post with all the pleasure one gets from reading someone else articulate his own views. Cheers. |
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thoreau
Joined: 21 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Koveras wrote: |
| thoreau wrote: |
http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/05/futarchy-considered-retarded.html
| Quote: |
| So as soon as you arrive at grad school, you'll discover that no mileage whatsoever is to be attained by actually attacking the half-baked ideas of your peers. Proper career strategy is to build coalitions - not tear them down. Actual, rigorous, adversarial science still exists in a few nooks and crannies. The tradition is remembered. But it is by far the exception. |
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That's a damn good blog. Thanks for the link. |
That's the blog I read when I start feeling smart. Keeps me in check. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 2:34 pm Post subject: Re: ... |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
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| That doesn't change the fact that academics -- and in fact the vast majority of humans -- behave this way. The article in question is totally correct. |
I don't believe I said anything about the article being wrong. However, "This is just a bunch of group think" is an argument that can be employed willy nilly against any prevailing thought, and it is. |
I don't think mises' point was that the views he opposes are wrong because "They are just a bunch of group think," but rather was saying that this type of "group think" is the reason such views could gain such momentum despite the fact that they may be wrong. My response was intended to reinforce that point. However, it's possible I may have misinterpretted what mises was trying to say. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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doc_ido
Joined: 03 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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Mises, doesn't your citation of two broadly opposing articles on climate change and two studies questioning our current understanding of it (although the ENSO article isn't actually anything new) counter your point?
Leaving the newspapers aside (which aren't peer-reviewed), both the journal articles were published. It's not like the scientific community tried to squash the findings in a fit of groupthink because they challenged some long-cherished beliefs. In my experience, the vast majority of publicly-funded science is impartial - we look at evidence and draw conclusions from it. When new evidence turns up, the theories change. This is why it's so easy to debunk a lot of the idiotic "science" that people come out with - you just ask "where's the evidence?"
That's not to say that agendas don't exist, but I don't think we need dissent for dissent's sake. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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| doc_ido wrote: |
Mises, doesn't your citation of two broadly opposing articles on climate change and two studies questioning our current understanding of it (although the ENSO article isn't actually anything new) counter your point?
Leaving the newspapers aside (which aren't peer-reviewed), both the journal articles were published. It's not like the scientific community tried to squash the findings in a fit of groupthink because they challenged some long-cherished beliefs. In my experience, the vast majority of publicly-funded science is impartial - we look at evidence and draw conclusions from it. When new evidence turns up, the theories change. This is why it's so easy to debunk a lot of the idiotic "science" that people come out with - you just ask "where's the evidence?"
That's not to say that agendas don't exist, but I don't think we need dissent for dissent's sake. |
The first two articles show how marginalization is a preferred (I'd say the preferred) method of 'winning' a debate. Krugman and others have compared climate change skeptics with Holocaust deniers. That's heavy stuff.
I disagree with you that dissent for the sake of dissent isn't important. |
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doc_ido
Joined: 03 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:15 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| The first two articles show how marginalization is a preferred (I'd say the preferred) method of 'winning' a debate. Krugman and others have compared climate change skeptics with Holocaust deniers. That's heavy stuff. |
I don't really see any marginalisation in the Guardian article - it's not like the authors wrote that people who say the ice didn't retreat are heretics; the evidence is right there to see.
I agree with you about Booker though - I don't think he's written a single article based in demonstrable fact, and he'll generally attempt to marginalise any dissenting view (typically ones with actual evidence).
Dissent for dissent's sake? I think that people should have the right to disagree, so long as I don't have to accommodate views not based on evidence. I don't think there are many dissenting voices on the "theory" of gravity, for example. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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| doc_ido wrote: |
I don't really see any marginalisation in the Guardian article |
I didn't read the Guardian article (because I no longer read that paper/site), but there are more than two options here (skeptics v believers). Personally, I'm not skeptical at all about the science behind global warming, but I very much resent that science being used to advance ideology (namely, socialism). |
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