How to Investigate the Truth (fact checking the fact-checkers)

submitted by zyxzevn from self.Solutions

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[–]zyxzevn[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It will certainly work for small stuff.

But psychologically, it is very hard for people to change their views.
Especially when there is some fear or consequences involved.
There are some good examples of that given by Scott Adams on his podcasts.
In the latest he explains how the people do not accept the evidence in the court-documents, but rather go protesting based on fake news.

So instead, I invite people to explain the situation in a way that the story has almost no opinions. 1. No logical fallacies. 2. Evidence based. etc.

This can improve the understanding of the full situations and the different ways to view it. So a person can say: "There is good evidence for this, but I believe that idea."

It may sound contra dictionary, but the person can then:
(1) improve the evidence for his idea,
or (2) accept the idea with the best evidence.
or (3) keep his idea, but understand that others may not support it,
or (4) look at another idea.

And at no point the person will feel attacked, when people add more evidence or reasons to support a different idea.

I hope this improves the communication between people that have completely opposing viewpoints.
They can even support each other in building a consistent and valid theory around their ideas.

[–]CompleteDoubterII 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I was talking about investigating the truth with no stake in where the evidence lies. I think people would be able to change their minds based on the evidence in that scenario. That being said, you are completely right in saying that it is hard for people to change their views when they have a stake in the truth. This is especially apparent in the case of social conformity. I will assume one is aware of the Asch Conformity Experiment. Gregory Berns took a variation of the experiments where he measured the participant's brain activity during a task (of rotating 3D objects). His results showed that the occipital–parietal network were used when answering incorrectly, meaning social conformity overwrote their reality. This is especially important since the results were physically verifiable. Imagine the implications for matters of opinion and claims that aren't physically verifiable (hat tip StormCloudsGathering).

Your idea of inviting people to explain the situation without any opinions may be a good way for people without strong stakes in what the truth is, but I doubt those with strong investment in a particular claim being true would be able to do that.

[–]zyxzevn[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Great points..
Maybe I should add a psychology& bias section in the list.

but I doubt those with strong investment in a particular claim being true would be able to do that

You are correct on that.

I chat with astronomers about clear problems in their field.
One huge problem is "magnetic reconnection" which completely breaks with all basic physics and with observations. But there are many others.

But instead of seeing the problem as it is, they just refer to someone else.
The "expert" becomes the "holy prophet".
They just copy the belief that someone else had.
Even if it clearly gets falsified in an experiment.
And bad maths and oversimplification becomes a way to proof impossible things.

The idea of inviting people to investigate theories according to logic and basic science,
is to see the quality of evidence for certain theories.
Even if they prefer other theories.
It can give you better understanding how other people may think, and how well received your theory might be.

My experiences..

I learned a lot from Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth.
In the beginning I completely believed the idea that the towers came down due to the airplanes.
But with basic physics ans basic logic they make a very convincing case how the towers came down by demolition.
And while I did not immediately believe them, I could accept the quality of their theory.

So when something happens, I want to invite people to become an investigator.
Like a crime investigator.
And look for evidence and use logic like a crime investigator would do.
In this I am copying the method that the Architects and Engineers use.

Logical fallacies:

And the first thing on my list are the logical fallacies.
That is because the first news and first opinions that you find will contain a huge amount of logical fallacies.
You need to remove the logical fallacies before you can use any of that information.

But the logical fallacies can also show you towards what opinions you are pushed.
This can reveal the underlying agenda or narrative that the news pushes.
Or even expose some propaganda.
And if it is too revealing, it may even be reverse psychology.
(The news makes you resist more, and it is meant to work that way).
In some cases there are planted or staged stories/events to make the narrative seem even more true.
Like the group of "russian bots" that were from an agency paid by the democrats,
to make the people think that they were targeted by russia.