TMI and ignorance

Via PhysOrg:

... economists Isabelle Brocas and Juan D. Carrillo present a situation – commonly observed in real life – in which all parties have access to the same information, but one party still manages to control public opinion.

...

The study, “Influence Through Ignorance,” is the first to thoroughly examine situations in which power comes from controlling the flow of public information, as opposed to the possession of private information.

As Brocas and Carrillo explain, there are secrets – facts that are deliberately withheld – and there are facts that are not known to anybody.

“It’s not necessary to have extra information,” Brocas said. “You can induce people to do what you want just by stopping the flow of information or continuing it. That’s enough.”

Notably, the party manipulating the flow of information must deliberately choose to remain uninformed as well – which can backfire.

...

“Overall, the ability of to control the flow of news and remain publicly ignorant gives the leader some power, which is used to influence the actions of the follower,” the researchers wrote. “Our result suggests that the chairperson, the President and media can bias the decision of the committee, electorate and public by strategically restricting the flow of information.”

This is something that I believe can also be seen in any discussion of science vs. religion - specifically in the evolution vs. creation debate. In the end-point of such debates one is left wondering why the other side chooses to remain ignorant your point-of-view (note: I'm not presently saying that one side is correct in their viewpoints, just that both sides might well feel that the other chooses to remain ignorant of the evidence so clear to them).

What one must do when confronted with such a feeling, however, is to consider whether or not the actual reason why there is such a feeling arises from a lack of access to knowledge (or explicitly choosing to remain ignorant of knowledge) on one's own side, or if it is more the case on the other side. I would argue here that dogmatic environments of learning tend to control the types of knowledge their adherents (be they students or acolytes) receive, while more liberal learning environments tend to encourage their adherents to learn from a variety of sources (or even - gasp! - on their own).

PZ Myers points to a great example that shows an explicitly dogmatic point-of-view in this evolution vs. creation "debate", and it does seem to me that much of the dogmatism in this "debate" does seem to rest with the side of the creationists. There is a lot of what appears to be dogmatism on the evolutionist side, but one has to realize the difference between assertions and dogma (at least how I'm using them).



Assertions are statements of fact based on repeatable observation or a rational explanation. Dogma are statements of fact based on tradition, which requires neither repeatable observation nor a rational explanation. One can say that Newtons laws of motion are "dogmatic" within kinematics - many people accept the three laws based on the long line of physicists that came before them who used the laws accurately and without mishap. However, this "dogma" was based ultimately on an assertion which was (using my definition above) based on repeatable observation (which can still be done today) as well as rational explanations (which work to accommodate many other areas of physics).

The coverage of the Brocas and Carillo paper does go on to say that:

Competition, supported by media diversity and public sources of research funding, not only induces outlets to release more information but also causes the “influence through ignorance” effect to diminish – and under certain circumstances to vanish – the researchers found.

This leads one to wonder whether, in the evolution vs. creation "debate", competition-based information releases will actually reduce ignorance, or if the authors are only really discussing situations where the information produced on all sides is accurate and equally accepted. If the former, then scientists shouldn't matter, and the whole PZ-Dawkins vs. Expelled! controversy should just quietly blow over (which much of the scienceblogosphere doesn't think will happen) with the passage of time. However, I feel that the opposite will happen: hard-held beliefs will not be broken with merely the presence of well-disseminated information (especially if there is equally well-disseminated [false] information supporting the opposing view, which happens to match with the pre-existing world-views held onto strongly due to those very hard-held beliefs science might be trying to sway).

At least the fight should prove interesting. I only hope that we don't end up with an American version of Lysenkoism (because that would NOT be good for the advancement of American science).