Tag Archives: Media

Uncritical Science News

By Robin Hanson · February 17, 2010 10:10 pm · Comments (22)

In Nature, Colin Macilwain says science reporting is too uncritical:

[Science journalism] converts original scientific findings, via a production line of embargoed press releases from journals and universities, into a steady stream of largely uncritical stories. … In stark contrast to proper investigations of issues such as public corruption, corporate maleficence or industrial health and safety — essentially silly stories about science continue to fill newspapers and news broadcasts.  Some science reporters are uneasy about this situation, but most accept it. … Most [scientists] seem to be largely content with a system that disguises the very human process of scientific discovery as a seamless stream of ingenious and barely disputed ‘breakthroughs’. Like other elites, researchers feel no great yearning to be held to account by the press. ….

There is a need for dedicated newspaper sections, radio and TV programmes, more akin to existing sports coverage, that can provide detailed, critical assessment of the scientific enterprise for people who really like science.  Reporters and editors could then engage with sets of findings and associated issues of real societal importance in the news pages, asking the hard questions about money, influence and human frailty that much of today’s science journalism sadly ignores. …

The machine … serves the short-term interests of its participants. … Researchers, universities and funding agencies get clips that show that their work has had ‘impact’. And readers get snippets, such as how red or white wine makes you live longer or less long, to chat about at the water-cooler. … Science is being misrepresented as a cacophony of sometimes divergent but nonetheless definitive ‘findings’, each warmly accepted by colleagues, on the record, as deeply significant. The public learns nothing about the actual cut and thrust of the scientific process.

Yes, science reporting is less critical than political, business, or sports reporting.  Since the media is very competitive, readers/viewers must prefer it that way.  But why?

First, we are far more suspicious of bids for dominance-status than for prestige-status.  We see politicians and businesses as threatening to dominate us and so we are eager to watch out for illicit power grabs.  In contrast, we see science, arts, literature, etc. as only awarding prestige, not power, and we are less worried about illicit prestige grabs.  We mainly care about prestigious stuff as ways to see who is more impressive, and a tricky “illicit” prestige grab is itself pretty impressive, so little harm done.

Also, we like some critical reporting on sports, music, and literature because we are expected to choose sides in these areas as part of our identity.  We are supposed to have our favorite band, team, or author, and so we appreciate news rehearsing arguments we might offer for or against such things

But we are not supposed to have favorite positions on science disputes.  Science is more like our communal religion, something that distinguishes us advanced insiders from those ignorant outsiders, and we are eager to signal being part of us and not them.  It is like how, aside from worrying about power-grabs by our military leaders, we are not each supposed to have a different favorite war strategy for our troops – that would be divisive and we prefer to show that we are united against them.

Sciences of politics or business are of course the obvious exception, as we suspect illicit power in politics or business might be supported by illicit scientists.  So we do see critical reporting in these sort of sciences.

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Praise Polymaths

By Robin Hanson · February 12, 2010 9:15 am · Comments (34)

Once upon a time folks who traveled far were treated with suspicion.  Sure if you were rich and traveled like the rich you weren’t more suspicious than other rich.  But those who traveled more than their class were suspected, correctly on average, of being less loyal to their neighbors.

Today travel is mostly celebrated; people love to talk about their trips and admire the well-traveled, even beyond the wealth it signals.  But travel today doesn’t much threaten loyalty – intellectual contact with locals is limited, and usually selected to be like-minded.  Ooh look, another pretty building.  True intellectual travel, where you actually take the time to see things from different perspectives, is rare, more valuable, and yet elicits more suspicion than admiration.

You see, our beliefs are severely distorted by our culture and training, and intellectual travel remains our only remotely reliable remedy.  We all know that we would have been inclined toward different beliefs had we been raised in different cultures or disciplines.  We see consistent differences between folks trained in West vs. East, science vs. humanities, economics vs. sociology, and in different schools of thought of most any discipline.  We like to think that we correct for this, but when we realize how hard that is, we throw up our hands saying “what ya gonna do?” Continue Reading "Praise Polymaths" »

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Show, Sort, Shill

By Robin Hanson · February 5, 2010 11:20 pm · Comments (28)

The point of writing is to help others see, but what exactly do we help others see?  Consider:

  • Show – Show the world new ideas (or insights).
  • Sort – Attach quality signals to shown ideas.
  • Shill – Push ideas, via other sorts of influences.

Many new ideas or insights can be expressed clearly in just a few paragraphs.  Others may take a few pages; a few need whole books.  With more work, one can express ideas in different ways, for more chances to connect to different readers, and attach good descriptors and connections, so that folks searching for such things can find your idea.

The vast majority of intellectual effort, however, is not such “showing”, but instead “sorting” and “shilling.”  Advocates push ideas via repetition, celebrity endorsement, etc., pundits are witty, engaging, elegant, etc, and academics make impressive-looking math models, theorems, data collections, stat studies, prototypes, etc.

When readers have good reasons to think that ideas with certain associations are objectively more true or valuable, I’ll say efforts to create such associations “sort” ideas.  Otherwise, such efforts “shill”, i.e., they direct attention or belief but not preferentially to objectively better ideas.

Now sorting is no doubt a required function — we need to know where to focus attention and belief.  But while intellectuals often suggest that their effort is efficiently directed toward this goal, I am skeptical.  Instead, I suspect audiences of pundits and academics mainly want to affiliate with credentialled-as-impressive folks.  Academics are mainly rewarded for doing impressive-looking idea-work, that can be credentialled as such.  Pundits, wonks, columnists, etc. are similarly rewarded for writing that is witty, engaging, elegant, etc.

Now academics and pundits do sometimes have original ideas and news, and such contributions can add a bit to impressiveness.  And many audiences, all else equal, prefer to hear news.  But mostly the finding and showing of such ideas and news is a side effect of trying to be and affiliate with impressiveness; institutions designed primarily to achieve that function would do it far more effectively.

To me, the great charm of blogging is that I can think about interesting things, have an apparently-original insight about something, and then in a few paragraphs I can show that insight to the world.  If an idea seems especially valuable, I can re-express it again in future posts, to better explain and index it.

My great anxiety about blogging is my fear that merely-blogged ideas will not get the attention or belief they deserve, if they do not get the usual quality signals, and that if I don’t give my ideas such quality signals, no one will.

I could take a ton of time and effort to give very standard quality signals, but I can only do this for a tiny fraction of my ideas and I might really just be trying to seem impressive.  I could work to make more efficient signals of quality for a selection of my ideas, signals that do indicate their truth or value of an idea, but that do less well at showing impressiveness.  But how many would attend to such signals, and would that be worth the neglect of other insights I could instead find and show via more blogging?

Which of these options is the most fun, and how much do I really care about anything else?  I remain honestly torn and uncertain here.

Added 8a: Both sorting and shilling both have positional aspects that concern me; they both raise ideas only at the expense of other ideas.  Overconfidence could easily trick one into over-estimating the value of such efforts.

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Two Movies

By Robin Hanson · February 4, 2010 11:25 pm · Comments (25)

I have two movies to recommend.

  1. Nobody Knows is terribly touching, and for exactly that reason, hard to watch.  It depicts dramatic story-like events, but it doesn’t give the usual cues to suggest you process it in a story-like far mode.  The main characters are children, who you see in near mode, up close and personal, mostly without words.  If you love children, you will love these children.  Things happen to them, but slowly, and without clear “here is a key event” markers.  So you process the events as near, with less story-mode emotional distance; you are more naked to the full terror of bad possibilities.  It makes me wonder what other stories would feel like, if we felt them as nearby.  And if I would dare to watch them.
  2. The Third & The Seven, a free ten minute entirely CG (computer graphics) clip, is a truly spectacular demo of what CG can do today.  I’ve watched it daily for two weeks now and still marvel at its details. See the hidef version if you can.  If you doubt at all that virtual reality could really be as detailed and vivid as our reality, take a look. (HT Rob Wiblin).
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Uppity China

By Robin Hanson · January 31, 2010 11:35 am · Comments (19)

He started it!  I was just minding my own business when out of the blue he looked at me funny.  So I had to clock him. (bullies everywhere)

A month ago I reported:

I hear a lot of China bashing these days.  To check, I surveyed the last ten China new articles in the Post and NYT. … Yup, top US newspapers are in full fledged China bashing mode.

Today’s top article at WashingtonPost.com is “China’s strident tone raises concerns”:

China’s indignant reaction to the announcement of U.S. plans to sell weapons to Taiwan appears to be in keeping with a new triumphalist attitude from Beijing that is worrying governments and analysts across the globe.  From the Copenhagen climate change conference to Internet freedom to China’s border with India, China observers have noticed a tough tone emanating from its government. …

“The Chinese find with startling speed that people have come to view them as a major global player. And that has fed a sense of confidence.”  Lieberthal said another factor in China’s new tone is a sense that after two centuries of exploitation by the West, China is resuming its role as one of the great nations of the world.

This new posture has befuddled Western officials and analysts. … Analysts say a combination of hubris and insecurity appears to be driving China’s mood. … What happens next will be crucial. China quietly sanctioned several U.S. companies for participating in such weapons sales in the past. However, it would mark a major change if China makes the list public.

So Western analysts are befuddled that China is surprising uppity – analyst explanations and remedies center on Chinese psychology and actions; surely nothing the West has done could be part of the explanation.  “We were just standing here minding our own business when they just went all crazy …”

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Microecon of Media

By Robin Hanson · January 23, 2010 5:35 pm · Comments (68)

Many have expressed concerns that corporations with free speech may “drown out” other voices.  This view seems to vastly misunderstand modern communications media.  For their benefit, and yours, let us then review the basics of modern media.

First, reader/viewer/listeners today can choose among many many sources.  There are hundreds of TV and radio channels, thousands of newspapers, magazines, and journals, and millions of web pages.  Most readers track many of these, and try new ones often. Readers return more to the sources they see as more valuable.  So sources who want to attract and retain readers must make such readers feel they are getting value, relative to reader time, money, and other costs.  Reader values obtained include info, image, status, fun, and morbid curiosity.

Complaints about corporate political speech often give analogies to street corners or bathroom graffiti, places where the loud can literally drown out the quiet.  Early radio was like this too; radio stations with big transmitters could drown out weak stations.  But the vast majority of media today are tunable; if you choose a particular TV station, magazine, or web page, that is the source you will get – there is little chance you’ll accidentally hear a different station.

So today, the main way some sources take readers away from others is by out-competing them — offering readers more net value.  If your message is not eagerly consumed by readers, your complaint should be with how readers estimate value, not with other sources that offer better value according to reader estimates.  You can of course offer meta-messages, to persuade them they are making mistakes in how to estimate value.  But again, if readers also neglect those meta-messages, your primary complaint is with readers, not with other sources.

Now it does seem that many folks are willing to hear ads instead of paying higher cash prices for media access.  To the extent that some such folks have a natural tendency to believe whatever the majority of ads they hear on such topics tell them, such shallow folks are in effect offering to believe whatever the most monetarily-eager advertisers want them to believe.  For such shallow folks, money-wise the loud can indeed drown out the less loud.

But again, your primary complaint here should be about those shallow voters, not the advertisers.  If you believe that some voters care so little about political outcomes that they are willing to sell their political beliefs to the highest advertising bidder, you should believe that such folks have no business voting!  After all, preventing some folks from directly buying political ads may have little net effect – those folks may buy ads indirectly, or find other ways to buy voter beliefs.  The key problem is that some voters care way too little about political outcomes.

If there are only a few such shallow voters, we can probably just ignore this problem.  If many voters are shallow about politics, however, it seems wiser to restrict the voting franchise to folks whose beliefs are less easily distorted.  The opinions of shallow folks who are easily swayed should have almost no additional information value – why let such them make a mess of how we determine policy?

Added 10:20p: Many folks mistakenly assume that distortions from shallow voters stop if corporations are silenced.  But not only would that hinder non-shallow voters from getting info from corporations, the total distortion by shallow voters is not obviously reduced!  Shallow voters who believe whatever side shows the most ads would either be bought by corporations more indirectly, or by other deep pockets more directly.  And the many other kinds of shallow voters, who believe whoever has the funniest ads, or the coolest spokesfolks, or the prettiest candidates, would still cause distortions.

Mechanically, it would be straightforward to limit the franchise by age, income, IQ, education, knowledge test scores, etc.  Yes such changes seem unpopular now, but that’s no excuse for ignoring them.

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After Armageddon

By Robin Hanson · January 6, 2010 5:00 pm · Comments (11)

Someone at the grocery checkout mentioned I was on TV last night, in the History Channel’s After Armageddon.  Apparently I’m on camera several times; I think this quote is from me:

Another expert said it best: “We like to think that moral progress has made us nice people. We’ve heard that our distant ancestors were mean and cruel and ruthless, and we can’t imagine that we would be such people – but we’re nice mainly because we’re rich and comfortable. And when we’re no longer rich and comfortable, we won’t be as nice.”

It will be reshown Saturday and Sunday, so I’ll get to see it then.  (I recorded this in August, at their excess expense.  If you thought such shows would tell interviewees when the show airs, well you’d be wrong.)

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China Bashing

By Robin Hanson · January 2, 2010 11:00 am · Comments (37)

China’s state-owned banks have become a main engine of the global recovery. … The surge in Chinese lending, triple the 2008 rate, has provided a lifeline to international corporations.  Post

Positive news, right?  But I hear shades of this famous scene:

POTTER:  Take during the depression, for instance. You and I were the only ones that kept our heads. You saved the Building and Loan, and I saved all the rest.

GEORGE: Yes. Well, most people say you stole all the rest.  It’s a Wonderful Life

I hear a lot of China bashing these days.  To check, I surveyed the last ten China new articles in the Post and NYT.  (Editorials bash even more.)  Post:

  1. Beijing’s $586 billion stimulus program has helped boost [its] growth.
  2. Hong Kong marchers press for democracy.
  3. accused … Obama of compromising Taiwan’s security to promote U.S. ties with China.
  4. China denounces U.S. trade ruling on steel pipes.
  5. U.N. Security Council, where China holds a veto and remains hesitant to act against [Iran].
  6. The U.S. … ruled … a surge of subsidized Chinese steel has harmed or threatens to harm the U.S. industry.
  7. Britain decries execution : China put U.K. citizen to death.
  8. China appears to be the biggest roadblock to robust U.N. [Iran] sanctions.
  9. The United States has seen the [Japan] moves as central to a new Asian security policy to assure Japan’s defense and to counter the rise of China.
  10. Burmese women being brought over for marriages with Chinese men — some forced.

NYT:

  1. Hong Kong Protesters Seek Democracy.
  2. Discovery of Melamine-Tainted Milk Shuts Shanghai Dairy.
  3. Index of China’s Manufacturing Rose Sharply in December.
  4. Telecom Company to Pay $3 Million in China Bribe Case.
  5. China: Xinjiang Enacts a Curb on Dissent.
  6. A pioneering editor who resigned amid [government censor] controversy last fall … named editor in chief of a new publication.
  7. China and 10 Southeast Asian nations ushered in the world’s third-largest free-trade area.
  8. Chinese Businesses Resist Eviction by Developers.
  9. U.S. Duties on Pipes From China Approved.
  10. China Executes Briton Despite Appeals.

Yup, top US newspapers are in full fledged China bashing mode.  Anyone think a list of the last ten articles about Britain or Canada would be nearly as negative?

The odd thing is that this media tries so hard to appear objective.  Yet they are blatant about the most obvious bias one should expect from national news: a bias toward negativity about rival nations.  Apparently we are most blind to our most obvious biases.

Added 8p: Many respond “Sure most nations are biased to want news about how their rivals are dangerously evil, but we aren’t biased because our rival really is dangerously evil.”  Gee, hadn’t thought of that; I take it all back …

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Balance Blocks News Info

By Robin Hanson · December 17, 2009 8:00 am · Comments (23)

When reporters are assigned to write articles on controversial topics, how much readers can learn from their articles depends on how much those reporter learn when investigating their topics.

Now on most controversies readers expect to see two main sides, each easily predicted from standard social divisions like left vs. right, male vs. female, etc.  So if a reporter interviews a random set of smart folks knowledgeable on a topic, they are likely to hear a wide range of complex opinions and arguments, and so they risk appearing confusing and unbalanced by giving too little coverage to one of the two main sides.

So busy reporters take an easier approach: they keep a stable of standard sources who are clearly identified with some side of a standard division, e.g., left or right, and can be relied on to take predictable positions associated with that side.  That is, they interview ideologues.

Ideologues allow reporters to quickly collect quotes to fill out a standard story format, listing some arguments from each of the two expected sides.  If reporters instead interviewed generally smart thoughtful people, they’d get more and more complex positions.  These would be harder to explain, and risk the article seeming unfairly balanced.

There are three kinds of info one might learn about any controversy:

  1. What are the various positions taken
  2. Which folks take what positions
  3. What arguments are offered for and against each position

What we learn from the usual reporter process is mainly the arguments offered by ideologues trying to support the expected two sides.  We don’t learn about arguments that don’t clearly support an expected side, nor about the wider space of positions taken, nor about the distribution of opinions on the topic.

From Alex Tabarrok explaining why he gets interviewed more often than Nobel prize winners.

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True Violence

By Robin Hanson · October 2, 2009 12:00 am · Comments (60)

I’ll never trust movie violence again. From the first chapter of Collin’s book Violence:

One reason that real violence looks so ugly is because we have been exposed to so much mythical violence. … Contemporary film style … may give many people the sense that entertainment violence is, if anything, too realistic. Nothing could be farther from the truth. … [They] miss the most important dynamics of violence: that it starts from confrontational tension and fear, that most of the time it is bluster, and that the circumstances that allow this tension to be over­ come lead to violence that is more ugly than entertaining. …

A particularly silly myth is that fights are contagious. This is a staple of old film comedies and melodramas. One person punches another in a crowded bar … and in the next frames everyone is hitting everyone around them. This fighting of all against all, I am quite certain, has never occurred as a serious matter in real life. … Continue Reading "True Violence" »

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