Thinking about thinking

This is the first of a planned two posts that I've been mulling over and sporadically writing notes to myself about over the last year or so. This first post is a very brief overview of some important concepts and well established results of psychology that help me think about my thinking. The second post is about valuing scientific expertise and why our non-expert default position should be to believe scientific consensuses, or at the very least, to be comfortable in saying, "I don't know". Both include a lot of links to further reading and learning if you're so inclined.  

Why?

Since the ascendancy of Donald Trump to the White House, and now with the coronavirus pandemic, I've noticed a lot of weird beliefs and thinking take hold across social media. Common to these groups is the idea that "the media" and other non-specific all-powerful groups or people (the "deep state", Bill Gates) are manipulating us with their "fake news", false narratives and sinister motives; that scientists and so-called "experts" can't be trusted. Unlike me, this new group of free and critical thinking peoples see the truth; the scales have fallen from their eyes (not that they are being manipulated by an authoritarian dictator and a disinformation campaign). I, on the other hand, as someone who tends to take experts and journalists who have a proven track record at face value, am one of the “sheeple”.

Arguing with people who have fallen down the YouTube and Facebook rabbit hole about their specific beliefs and claims is exhausting and likely to backfire. As such, I thought I'd take a different tack and discuss how I think about critical thinking vs non-critical and pseudo-critical thinking, and the importance of valuing expertise. 

If I have sent you a link to this post, it's because I know I won't convince you about whatever it is we're disagreeing about. I'm not even going to try. Forget about whatever it was we were discussing as it’s not specific to what follows. What I hope to do is to show how I think about any claim, how I try to reflect on my own thinking (I'm not always successful), and in another post, why I think we should all value and respect expertise. 

Critical thinking vs non-critical and pseudo-critical thinking

First, I think it's important to distinguish between the three different modes of thinking that to some degree we all use to come to a point of view — critical thinking, non-critical thinking (see Kahneman's slow and fast thinking) and pseudo-critical thinking.

Big pharma shill defends more than 90% of drugs being contaminated

A recent study in Nature has found that 92% of 26 medicines tested were found to have some form of contamination and/or substitution, because they included toxic metals, non-listed substituted pharmaceuticals and stimulants, and a variety of DNA, none of which were listed on the product's label.

These researchers used highly sensitive DNA sequencing, toxicology and heavy metal testing to assess the composition of 26 widely available drugs (they were purchased in Adelaide and are available for sale in retailers and markets nationally). The Venn diagram below, taken from their study, shows that only two of the 26 drugs tested were clean.

One results worth highlighting: some of the drugs also included ephedrine, which gives many people a buzz, making them feel good immediately (ergo, the medicine feels great and they should keep taking it). Also worth noting that nearly all were non-compliant for heavy metals and other dangerous substances, including more than the safe limit of arsenic, cadmium, lead and strychnine.

This is appalling. Big pharma is a multi-billion-dollar industry and this lack of quality control is inexcusable. What is just as shocking and inexcusable as the results, is the reaction from National President of the Federation of Pharmacists of Australia, Professor Linda Child. She does not believe such findings would be widespread across the industry, saying: "It will be one or two individual companies. It may be one or two cases [that have] happened, but not many. The current regulatory regime is perfect."

Ah, what? 24 out of 26 would suggest it's the norm and the opposite of perfect. For her to say this, instead of being outraged, shows she is simply the chief big pharma shill, bought and paid for by the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry. This is an industry that clearly puts profits before patients. What anyone who cares about patients getting the actual ingredients of the prescribed medicines would say (I'd have thought) is that this needs to be properly investigated and someone needs to go to jail.

This is a multi-billion dollar industry. If they chose they could ensure rigorous quality control of ingredients at a minimum. And I'll go further — they should undertake proper, rigorous and open trials that test for the efficacy and safety of medicines. Not the dodgy process they currently go through, with sympathetic proponents rubber stamping every new drug any company wants and protecting them from real regulation and testing.

Syllogistic sophisms

Humbug reader Dan sent me this “proof” of the existence of god. He knew it was rubbish, but wasn’t sure why:

Premise: If God didn't exist, there would be no atheists.
Premise: Atheists exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.

Sometimes dullards people find various versions of such sophistry convincing. For example, here is my version of St. Anselm’s ontological argument for the proof of god:

Premise: I can imagine the greatest being that exists (i.e. god).
Premise: He/she/it would not be the greatest being that I can imagine if he/she/it did not exist.
Conclusion: Therefore he/she/it (i.e. god) exists.

Though on first inspection these constructions might seem convincing, as with all syllogisms, they are based on premises that must be accepted a priori. We can show the flawed reasoning they are based on in a variety of ways.

One method is Reductio Ad Absurdum, whereby I use the same logic and show that an absurd or opposite conclusion is reached. Combined with the technique of Inversion, I am able to do this:

Premise: If atheists exist, there would be no God.
Premise: Atheists exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, there is no God.

I’ve simply followed the identical structure of the initial syllogism and reached the exact opposite conclusion. Both versions are equally valid, provided we accept the premises. But this is the key point with deductive logic; you need to accept the premises and often the premises, as is the case with the above examples, are without merit.

The god/atheist premise is obviously flawed. The existence of god and atheists are independent of each other. But the flaw in St. Anselm's ontological argument is less obvious. The flaw is the fact that this argument presupposes existence is greater (or more perfect) than non-existence. Why? A counter example should make it clear that if anything, not existing is more perfect or “greater” than existing in many (if not all) cases. (And again, this all depends on what one means by “greater”.)

Pick any geometrical figure or mathematical concept and its existence is greater (or more perfect) in your imagination than in reality. The definition of a circle, for example, is the points in a plane that are at a constant distance from a fixed point. This is literally impossible to create. It does not exist in reality and moreover, in theory could not ever be created in reality. I mean this in two ways, at a classical level we cannot do this using current technology (all measurements have inherent limitations due to resolution/precision) and at a quantum level (indeterminacy).

Accepting this premise - that greater, more perfect things exist in the mind rather than in reality (which I’d say is more justifiable than the other) - using St. Anselm’s logic, we get:

Premise: I can imagine the greatest most perfect being that exists (i.e. god)
Premise: Greatest, most perfect things can only exist in the mind that conceives of them
Conclusion: Therefore the greatest being (i.e. god) exists in my mind only

QED.

Back to Reductio Ad Absurdum, but this time using Substitution; unicorns for God and a-unicornists for atheists:

Premise: If unicorns didn't exist, there would be no a-unicornists (people who don’t believe in unicorns).
Premise: A-unicornists exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, unicorns exist.

These word games are so bad they’re not even wrong.

SHAMblog: An unconvincing 'mallrat'-ionale?

Steve Salerno, author of the book SHAM (on my "to read" list), gives an excellent example of the technique of Substitution. On reading his entire post you'll see he discusses the unquestioned and unconscious bias against teenagers. This particular case was about a ban on teenagers hanging about a shopping mall at particular times. He shows the uncritical bias with a substitution:

...suppose we replace the word "teens" with the word "Hispanics" (or even, say, "Hispanic teens"). Suppose mall management had asked its security people for an assessment of who was causing the most trouble, and the security people replied, "That's easy: It's the Latinos." ...If a mall tried to do that, would the media report the event uncritically ...[o]r would the reporting sound a distinct note of outrage and indignation?

Read Steve's entire post: SHAMblog: An unconvincing 'mallrat'-ionale?

Geminis and Germans

This post is about an example of the technique of Substitution. It comes from the excellent 2 part documentary series, The Enemies of Reason (this is from Part 1), written and hosted by Richard Dawkins (embedded below – you can download it via google video - it’s a “must see”). Dawkins discusses the pseudo-science of astrology. He points out that it seems to be okay to stereotype people based on their star-sign (about 6 minutes into the documentary). Dawkins points out the hypocrisy of this by substituting nationalities in place of star signs. He asks us:

How would we react if a newspaper published a daily column that read something like this:

Germans: It is in your nature to be hard working and methodical, which should serve you well at work today. In your personal relationships, especially this evening, you will need to curb your natural tendency to obey orders.

Chinese: Inscrutability has many advantages, but it may be your undoing today.

British: Your stiff upper lip may serve you well in business dealings, but try to relax and let yourself go in your social life.

Dawkins goes on to point out that astrology columns are hardly as offensive as above, but there is no difference in essence.

With the substitution, all of a sudden the politically correct sensibilities swing into action. We don’t accept facile and artificial differences in any other way.

I often use substitution when acquaintances are having fun “American bashing”. They make statements such as: “Americans are so stupid”, or: “Americans are gun nuts”, or: “Americans are religious fundamentalists”, etc. The technique I learned from Jef, was to ask them to repeat their sentence, but substitute the word “Blacks”, or “Jews”, or “Women” for “Americans”. For some reason they never seem to do it?



Back to astrology. If asked what my star sign is, I steal Bill Bryson’s reply: “Necrophilia”.

Substitution

The inconsistency of an opponent’s position can often be demonstrated by substitution. Replace the groups, persons or phenomena which are the "actors" involved in the proposition they are arguing for (or against), with other groups, persons or phenomena for which they hold a different (often inverse) position. Assuming that the chain of reasoning for the argument ought to be comparable, it follows that a comparable conclusion ought to be reached.

For example, Lee N Wright is arguing with his girlfriend Ima Green about the justification for military pre-emptive strikes on terror cells and rouge states:

"We might not be 100% sure that there will be a terrorist attack, but the precautionary principle means we ought to act before it’s too late."

Ima is aware that Lee is an anthropogenic climate change skeptic who thinks there is no need to worry about greenhouse gas emissions. She points out Lee’s inconsistency by simple substitution:

"We might not be 100% sure that climate change is man-made, but the precautionary principle means we ought to act before it’s too late."

If Lee argues the precautionary principle in one case, to be consistent he needs to uphold it in all cases. He either needs to back away from his argument for pre-emptive strikes, or alter his position on climate change. (This assumes there are no significant differences in both cases, otherwise one could be guilty of a False Analogy.)

Note that Ima is in the exact same position as Lee, given she thinks we ought to act to minimise man-made climate change - I often wonder how people are able to function whilst suffering from obvious cognitive dissonance.

Examples:

• Syllogistic sophisms
  
• SHAMblog: An unconvincing 'mallrat'-ionale?
  
• Geminis and Germans
• No conflict here, just scientists doing their jobs - you know - science
• I See Bigoted People
• Comment on post: Miranda Devine rolls her eyes at climate change…
• Comment on post: Plimer partakes in poisoned polemic