Holman W. Jenkins Jr., Wall Street Journal, April 13-14, 2019
Psychologist/anthropologist John Tooby puts it a little differently in his essay in the book This Idea Is Brilliant: “Coalition-mindedness makes everyone, including scientists, far stupider in coalitional collectivities than as individuals.” Translated into English, that means we tend to think more rationally as individuals than as members of a group, especially if that group is at odds with some other group.
A mob is an extreme example. Members of that mob may do things they would never think of doing on their own. A much more common example is the one Wall Street Journal columnist Holman W. Jenkins Jr. refers to, namely the American political scene. Compromise in Washington seems impossible because members of both parties are entrenched in their positions, always against whatever the other party is for. What may be worse for the country, members of the media have taken sides, as well, and shape their reporting accordingly.
“Our industry needs to grow up by starting to police its reasoning as rigorously as it does its facts,” Jenkins wrote. The major news media — including CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post (all mentioned by Jenkins) — tend to interpret Washington news according to how others with the same political mindset interpret it, never mind a rational examination of the facts.
Something similar happens in the scientific world, according to Tooby, at least on topics that are controversial with some members of the public, such as climate change, vaccinations and evolution. Scientists may be hesitant to challenge any findings in these areas for fear of lending support to the “wrong” side.
“Once scientific propositions are moralized, the scientific process is wounded,” Tooby writes. “No one is behaving either ethically or scientifically who doesn’t make the best case possible for rival theories with which one disagrees.”
No translation necessary.
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