What Evidence Divergent Explanations?
On Thursday I asked:
Among academics who focus on particular times other than our own, far more focus on past than future times. Why?
Among the 24 comments a great many creative explanations were offered. But:
I find it striking that most everyone seems to think it reasonably obvious that we should expect more study of history than the future, and yet people offer widely differing explanations for this phenomena.
This is a common and interesting situation: people offering divergent explanations of a conclusion on which they mostly agree. This suggests to me that they do not really know why they believe this conclusion. But does that fact suggest anything about how reasonable is their conclusion?
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By Robin Hanson · Hundreds of paid subscribers
This is a blog on why we believe and do what we do, why we pretend otherwise, how we might do better, and what our descendants might do, if they don't all die.
Robin's intuition is bang-on. It is somewhat absurd to suppose that we would be strengthening an argument by intentionally weakening it. How many great essays can you think of that do that? What would Orwell have done?
There are always people to present other views in a debate, or else there wouldn't be a debate. A strong argument is strong independent of advancing or exploring other hypotheses. Yet sometimes people do feel suspicious of good arguments, as though weakening them is somehow more honest. I think this doesn't have a logical explanation but rather an emotional one. In the postmodern west making value judgments is viewed suspiciously. Truth in general is suspect, especially if crystal clear. By presenting two or more sides to an argument we are suggesting that one argument is not better than another, just different. Descriptive, not prescriptive, if you will...
It's a nice sentiment, but it has little to do with making a case for or against something. Cohen's visceral reaction against a clear (if mundane) argument shows his own bias, not the book's authors'. Had the book been balanced in a way satisfactory to him, would it really have made a difference to his opinion about Israel?
"Isn't it reasonable to assume that we might be predisposed to being biased in favor of whichever argument we have heard most recently, and that we should withhold final judgment until we have heard both sides?"
The concept of "both sides" may be the mother of all biases. Primate social groups, in my understanding, often make leadership decisions by an alpha male and a challenger male battling for supremacy. This bias of decision-making by weighing 2 sides (as opposed to considering there may be n-th possible 'sides') warps a significant amount of decision making, it seems to me.