I stumbled on this article of yours while I'm writing about the same thing - the interactionist theory proposed by Mercier and Sperber. I'm glad people are writing about their ideas! The book "The Enigma of Reason" changed the way I think about this topic.
I recommend other writings by Sperber, Baumard, Andre and Mercier on morality and communication. In a few weeks, I will post about communication games and will discuss their work on that topic.
Oh, thank you! I had read your article "What side are you on?" and I thought that was really good too! I'll have to read the other one you recommended. And of course, I'm looking forward to the articles you'll post in the future.
> Today, large proportions of the world population do not believe in well-supported scientific concepts like the theory of the Big Bang, biological evolution, or the efficacy of vaccines.
How can an average person without a decent background in astrophysics, evolutionary biology and medical data science know whether these concepts are actually well supported?
There is a chain of trust that should, by capillarity, connect top scientists to laymen people. Each link from scientist to layman may lead to a lower expertise, but trust in the higher level would nonetheless be reasonable given the arguments put forward at a higher level. This chain is often broken because of motivations to trust other experts (e.g. gurus, political leaders). Hugo Mercier’s Not Born Yesterday (2020) has an enlightening discussion about this.
Wouldn’t relying on this chain of trust make beliefs in scientific theories functionally equivalent to religious beliefs? How different would be the belief in Big Bang from the belief in Trinitarianism or Dialectic materialism? Lay Catholics put their trust in professional theologians endorsed by the Church, ordinary communists were expected to trust decisions of the Politburo, etc.
Given our limited time, capacities and resources, most of our knowledge comes through testimony, which is sustained under chains of trust, and that isn't a bad thing in itself, is just the way things are. But that doesn't mean all kinds of trust are the same or that all trust relations function in the same way. Scientific theories and religious doctrines have different goals in mind and while chains of testimony and trust are fundamental for the development of both, such trust works in different ways. Epistemologists have written a lot about this issue in recent years (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/testimony-episprob/)
We can think that what discriminate scientific theories and quasi-religious doctrines is not truth vs non-truth, but compatibility with available evidence on the side of science, vs resistance to possible criticism given the available evidence on the side of quasi-religious doctrines (a Popperian take). In the chains of trust, there would be more leaps of faith in the quasi religious doctrines that would persists typically because people do not ask questions due to their motivation to maintain these beliefs.
I'd question 2 things in this essay (let me know what you think):
1) I think you're mistaking scientific knowledge with reason,
but scientific knowledge is only a subset of reason.
You might put science on the top of your metaphysic, and put it above all else,
but others might have other epistemic hierarchies.
And sure we can question those hierarchies different people have and try to argue for science, etc. , but it seems to me like it was an implicit assumption in this essay, without clear justification.
2) If reason "evolved" for good argumentation, then that necessitates and assumes good thought process as well.
I don't understand why you put those 2 (good argumentation, good thought process) in separate domains. It seems to me like good argumentation requires good thought process. It's just another way of describing the same thing, from a different angle.
What we consider logical reasoning, brain science says is mostly in the left frontal cortex. A lot of effective persuasion is emotionally based, which works on earlier layers of the brain. I believe that the most common reason why reason fails to convince is that our emotional biases keep us from engaging reason. I see my view as agreeing with yours, just focused slightly differently.
A set of tools for getting around these emotional biases is literally the blog post that I'm writing right now, and aiming to release on Monday.
I'm also in complete agreement with you on the importance of being more self-reflective about how vindicated we feel by our own arguments. As I argued in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TMgfapzbt5qp4Hszf/doubt-certainty, a feeling of certainty should be viewed of evidence of potential cognitive bias. This is true both in ourselves and others. We do better when we're cautious of our own certainty, and are doubly cautious about accepting views because someone we like feels certain about them.
I stumbled on this article of yours while I'm writing about the same thing - the interactionist theory proposed by Mercier and Sperber. I'm glad people are writing about their ideas! The book "The Enigma of Reason" changed the way I think about this topic.
Hi Paula, glad you liked it. Yes, the interactionist approach is right I believe as most of our use of reasoning is to navigate social problems. On the same theme I wrote the following posts: https://optimallyirrational.com/p/what-side-are-you-on and https://www.optimallyirrational.com/p/the-marketplace-of-rationalisations.
I recommend other writings by Sperber, Baumard, Andre and Mercier on morality and communication. In a few weeks, I will post about communication games and will discuss their work on that topic.
Oh, thank you! I had read your article "What side are you on?" and I thought that was really good too! I'll have to read the other one you recommended. And of course, I'm looking forward to the articles you'll post in the future.
> Today, large proportions of the world population do not believe in well-supported scientific concepts like the theory of the Big Bang, biological evolution, or the efficacy of vaccines.
How can an average person without a decent background in astrophysics, evolutionary biology and medical data science know whether these concepts are actually well supported?
There is a chain of trust that should, by capillarity, connect top scientists to laymen people. Each link from scientist to layman may lead to a lower expertise, but trust in the higher level would nonetheless be reasonable given the arguments put forward at a higher level. This chain is often broken because of motivations to trust other experts (e.g. gurus, political leaders). Hugo Mercier’s Not Born Yesterday (2020) has an enlightening discussion about this.
Wouldn’t relying on this chain of trust make beliefs in scientific theories functionally equivalent to religious beliefs? How different would be the belief in Big Bang from the belief in Trinitarianism or Dialectic materialism? Lay Catholics put their trust in professional theologians endorsed by the Church, ordinary communists were expected to trust decisions of the Politburo, etc.
Given our limited time, capacities and resources, most of our knowledge comes through testimony, which is sustained under chains of trust, and that isn't a bad thing in itself, is just the way things are. But that doesn't mean all kinds of trust are the same or that all trust relations function in the same way. Scientific theories and religious doctrines have different goals in mind and while chains of testimony and trust are fundamental for the development of both, such trust works in different ways. Epistemologists have written a lot about this issue in recent years (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/testimony-episprob/)
How do you distinguish between proven scientific theories and quasi-religious doctrines claimed to be proven scientific theories?
We can think that what discriminate scientific theories and quasi-religious doctrines is not truth vs non-truth, but compatibility with available evidence on the side of science, vs resistance to possible criticism given the available evidence on the side of quasi-religious doctrines (a Popperian take). In the chains of trust, there would be more leaps of faith in the quasi religious doctrines that would persists typically because people do not ask questions due to their motivation to maintain these beliefs.
Hard to argue with this one 😜
I'd question 2 things in this essay (let me know what you think):
1) I think you're mistaking scientific knowledge with reason,
but scientific knowledge is only a subset of reason.
You might put science on the top of your metaphysic, and put it above all else,
but others might have other epistemic hierarchies.
And sure we can question those hierarchies different people have and try to argue for science, etc. , but it seems to me like it was an implicit assumption in this essay, without clear justification.
2) If reason "evolved" for good argumentation, then that necessitates and assumes good thought process as well.
I don't understand why you put those 2 (good argumentation, good thought process) in separate domains. It seems to me like good argumentation requires good thought process. It's just another way of describing the same thing, from a different angle.
What we consider logical reasoning, brain science says is mostly in the left frontal cortex. A lot of effective persuasion is emotionally based, which works on earlier layers of the brain. I believe that the most common reason why reason fails to convince is that our emotional biases keep us from engaging reason. I see my view as agreeing with yours, just focused slightly differently.
A set of tools for getting around these emotional biases is literally the blog post that I'm writing right now, and aiming to release on Monday.
I'm also in complete agreement with you on the importance of being more self-reflective about how vindicated we feel by our own arguments. As I argued in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TMgfapzbt5qp4Hszf/doubt-certainty, a feeling of certainty should be viewed of evidence of potential cognitive bias. This is true both in ourselves and others. We do better when we're cautious of our own certainty, and are doubly cautious about accepting views because someone we like feels certain about them.