Doing science in a posttruth world Business as

Doing science in a post-truth world Business as usual ?

The problem

Post-truth has been around for some time Source: Google Ngram

But usage of the term exploded in 2016 Source : Oxford dictionaries

Post-truth • Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. • ”Alternative facts”, “Depends on perspective”…. . (Source: CBS News)

Post-truth • Where does this come from ? • What can we do about it ? • Short term • Long term

The post-truth problem: let us refine/detail the definition • Experts appear to have lost their authority • Society has problems to deal with/discuss expertise and beliefs/emotions appear to be more important • Political decisions appear to become decoupled from objective facts and are often driven by emotional arguments: • • • Migration Terrorism Climate Change Transport ….

So, how did that happen ? • Is this just something that came up over the last (several) months ? • Election of a president like Trump • Populism • Is it a response to overzealous scientists, promoting science by all means, e. g. in the climate change debate ? • Is it something that has always existed, yet became more obvious due to coincidence ? • Or is it something that can be better understood as part of a large scale pattern ? Deeper philosophical roots?

Or has this even deeper roots ? • Where does the widely shared aversion against numbers, science and technology come from ? • Why is it that societies have so much difficulty to fully embrace the methods on which the inventions are based that made them flourish ? • What has all this do to with post-truth and how should scientists act ?

Just a quote from a KU Leuven professor • "Vroeger was literatuur studeren even vanzelfsprekend als het nu is om ingenieur te studeren. Je moest nooit uitleggen waarom je juist had gekozen om filologie te doen. Maar nu zitten alle politici te zwaaien en te pronken met STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths). STEM heeft geen gevoel. Dat zijn formules zonder gevoelens. Dat had eigenlijk MEST moeten heten. " Quote from a Professor in Literature, KU Leuven, 2016.

We would argue that the roots of the problem are indeed quite deep and that this has important implications

My most important references:

And

Where we start ? • Greek science ? • The scientific revolution of the 15 th century ? • The Enlightment of the 17 th-18 th cent. ?

Nietzche (1844 -1900): The death of God • "The Madman“ in “The science of joy” ~ Our search for objective truth (in religion, science, etc. ) led to the discovery that nothing can guarantee what is true or false God as a metaphor for what guarantees truth We’ve killed this God and we don’t realize yet what this implies …

When things took off: end of WWII • World was confronted with monstruosities deemed only possible thanks to technological development • Holocaust • Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki • …. . • The world after WWII was completely different from the one before • Political • Technological

End of WWII in numbers

WWII led to thorough reflections on the role of technology in societal development (that built on prevous work) • German and French (contintental philosphers) such as Adorno and Marcuse: • Adorno (Dialectic of Enlightenment, 1947): ‘The wholly enlightened Earth is radiant with calamity” and ‘Terror and Civilisation are inseparable: it is impossible to loose Terror and retain Civilisation’ (in the conclusions !) • Heidegger, 1954 in ‘The question concerning Technology’: attacks the ‘monstruous nihilism’ of modern culture, based on exploitation and instrumentalisation (the river becomes a shipway) and contrasts it with ‘authenthic, artisanal living’ Source: Phillips 2016

Some of the proposed solutions: • Adorno (in ‘Minima Moralia’): a retreat from technology: give up want: rien faire comme une bête being nothing else may take the place of producing wealth, which just leads to want on a bigger scale. • Marcuse (1964, One-dimensional man): Consumerism controls you ! We have become slaves of our consumerism and technological rationality has impoverished modern life. Escape ! Be a rebel ! • Note: evidently the above is not a complete summary of philosophy after WWII. Many philosophers were less naïve and proposed a more voluntary, participatory approach.

Genesis of the degrowth movement www. degrowth. org

Genesis of the counter-culture • ‘Rebel’ culture: do not get caught in the techno/capitalist trap that will mould you into a mindless consumer. • Resist, be differerent, be the exception ! • No need to say that the ‘rebel’ stance was quickly recognised by the ‘system’ to sell millions of ‘rebel’ shoes and ‘rebel’ music albums

How a Google image search says it all …

The ‘rebel’ stance also affected philosophy (post-modernism) • Everything is continuously put into question, which is, as such, not a bad idea • But things perhaps went a bit too far • Michel Foucault (cited by Beeckman): there is no absolute truth, just different regimes of truth. What you think can never be objective, it depends on your ideology(doxa) and the dominant discourse in your environment (episteme). There will always be dominating discourse that is the current truth. This discourse needs to be analysed to find out who benefits and who is the victim (power relationships). This battle is continuous: there is no ‘best’ outcome. Everything depends on power relationships

This might have gotten out of hand…

We are (evidently) not the first to think about this

Publication date: 2006

His point • ‘Bullshitting’ is worse than lying: truth is buried in a stream of ‘alternative’ facts • We loose our faith of truth • Hence we will no longer know what the reality is

Mark Elchardus summarized his view in a column in De Morgen

Mark Elchardus (De Morgen, 2017) • Lang voor er sprake was van sociale media, werd het ondermijnen van waarheid en feitelijkheid gepromoot in academische kringen. Vanaf de jaren 70 van de vorige eeuw groeide daar een archipel van "studies", disciplines zonder al te veel discipline in feite: postkoloniale studies, feministische studies, queer-studies, cultural studies. Zij delen een postmoderne gezindheid, alsook het streven naar deconstructie. De rede, de wetenschap, het zorgvuldig toetsen van hypothesen, het nuanceren met cijfers, het rechtlijnige denken en zelfs eenvoudige duidelijkheid, werden beschouwd, niet alleen als westerse eigenaardigheden, maar als vormen van imperialistisch geweld waarmee de derde wereld werd onderdrukt, de "Ander" beledigd, het "Verschil" vernield en "homogenisering" betracht. Die onwaarschijnlijke intellectuele beweging veroverde snel heel wat departementen literatuur, filosofie en antropologie, verspreidde zich ook enigszins in de rest van de universiteit, organiseerde congressen en nam wetenschappelijke tijdschriften over, waarvan de redacties niet altijd in staat bleken een parodie te onderscheiden van niet noodzakelijk ernstige maar wel ernstig bedoelde bijdragen. De populariteit van die beweging bleef beperkt tot wat academici en de studenten die zij in de war brachten, maar droeg bij aan een klimaat van onzekerheid over de grondslagen van kennis

But there also critics…

• Zo komt een waarheid tot stand die onzekerder is en meer twijfel toelaat, maar die paradoxaal genoeg meer aanspraak kan maken op objectiviteit. Zij verdoezelt de subjectieve positie van de wetenschapper immers niet, maar openbaart en problematiseert ze. Een dergelijke waarheid, die ruimte laat voor twijfel en meerstemmigheid, lijkt me niet meteen recept voor populisme of fascisme. Eerder integendeel, zou ik denken, al hoed ik me er voor op mijn beurt de impact van de menswetenschappen te overschatten. Indien zij al een invloed willen hebben, moeten zij hun meerstemmige waarheden op een begrijpelijke wijze kenbaar maken. De uitdaging is niet gering.

Now, evidently, there was also a countermovement • Rational philosophy (Dennett, Searle and many others) actively investigate what science has to offer to philosophy and vice versa • But postmodernism philosophy (and related lines of thought such as deconstructionism (Derrida) have had a tremendous impact on philosopy, political science and society as a whole. This was probabbly not always the intention of the philosophers but was the outcome… • And some postmodernists now worry about this (Bruno Latour in ‘Has critique run out of steam ? ’ (2004)

So, the debate about ‘what is truth ? ’ did not start in 2016 • It has a long history that evidently started before WWII • However, it is fair to say that it got a strong impetus after WWII, leading to (a lot of) philosophical work stating that any claim on absolute truth are necessarily fraught with difficulty • That conflicts to some extent with scientific endeavour which is oriented towards fact finding and theory development and which assumes that there is ‘truth/reality’ out there (that we can only discover by continuously questioning what we know)

Where does this leave us ? • Has scientific truth indeed become less relevant ? • Of course not: everyone driving a car or sitting in a plane relies on the laws of physics/chemistry • But: true that scientific evidence/role of science in solving societal problems has become much more contested • Problem is deeply rooted: • Postmodernism has been important for decades and has had an important impact on political/philosophical thinking • But is the only issue ? • The problem is not only be related to the post-WWII situation but also with human nature. We do not like our belief systems to be challenged (and this talk is no exception). That is no longer necessary when you assume that truth is relative.

How do humans decide: the work of Daniel Kahneman

Gilbert and others: how mental systems believe

In short • People are much more willing to accept ideas they readily understand: easier explanations will therefore win out • People are much more willing to accept evidence in line with what they believe: confirmation bias • People attach emotional value to their beliefs: this makes it difficult to change views/minds,

A logical consequence: when we are under pressure we have more difficulty to recognise falsehoods Gilbert et al. , 1993

Mount stupid

An elaborated version:

Deep understanding leads often to complex answers which are more difficult to accept

Where does all that leave us ? • The truth issue did not simply pop up in 2016 • Human nature predisposes us to post-truth and evolutions after WWII reinforced that • The nature of science does not really help: while there are facts out there, we are often uncertain leading to confusion and revision • Knowing that is interesting but does it also help us to solve it ? • Where doe we want to go ?

What does this mean for scientists ? • Do we have to assume a different role ? • What does this mean for scientific education and university education in general ?

Some ideas of Jonathan Foley and Christine Arena • Give us a vision (of America) that embraces science. It is the beacon of knowledge and hope for the world. • Engage in political conversations: You cannot isolate science from politics, or politics from science. To try is folly. But do not only defend: try to understand your adversaries and their motives. • Don’t Fall into the “Culture War” Trap. Do not get divided over creationism vs evolution, faith vs science etc. Try to find common ground • Watch for the “Merchants of Doubt” Persons or organisations trying to cast doubt on established facts • Balance Facts with Stories. Facts alone are not enough to win debates, let alone hearts and minds.

So, what can we do ? • Do scientists need to become more active participants in the ‘societal debate’ ? • Do they need to participate ‘when asked’ or do we need much more pro-active ? • Should our participation be limited to the communication of scientific facts or do we need to (much more) actively combate non-truth ?

(Some) journalists call out to us

The Guardian, 2016

If we should engage more in the societal debate, would it be enough ? • Perhaps not: • It is a ‘deep’ problem: • Partly explained by fundemental properties of the human brain: we all do have belief systems and we do hate to change our beliefs, we like facts that confirm our vision and we negate those that do not fit our vision. Overcoming this requires a big effort. • Partly by long-lasting paradigms/visions in the societal debate • This can only be solved using ‘deep’ solutions

Are changes in university education part of such a deep solution ? • Is science communication as we teach it now OK, or do we need to give more attention to fact checking ? • We often argue that non-scientists should have a better knowledge of science. We then argue that this needs to be achieved by courses on specific, important topics. But what if we would develop courses on a better understanding of the scientific method instead ? What if the most important component of such courses would be ‘bullshit detection’ ? What if we train *all* students to become more scientific ? • Is it OK to limit training/information to students ? Or do we need to develop broader initiatives ?

An example: this course does exist now

The syllabus

In all this: • How do we deal with the fact that humans are often far from rational ? • Do we, scientists, need more training in how to debate/communicate/convince non-scientists ?