Trego's Mountain Ear

It’s easy to spread misinformation. Unfortunately, we all have a tendency to believe data that supports our beliefs. On the morning of September 10, I wouldn’t have recognized Charlie Kirk if he had walked up and bit me on the leg. By the afternoon of that day, I heard the the President’s words confirming his death. The folding table, and the sign “Prove Me Wrong” were vaguely familiar – it turns out that I retired from the college campus scene about the time he was starting – so I looked at YouTube to see what he did.

I watched him debate, or attempt to debate, a young man whose stance was that anyone who identified as a woman was a woman. Charlie Kirk’s stance was that it took two X chromosomes. He was using rationality against repetition – and, to me, it looked like he was on top of the debate. The guy who was arguing against him looked frustrated, angry and foolish.

I tried rational discourse on Facebook years back. A classmate had posted that (based on her experience as an election official) there was no election fraud in Montana. It was too easy – all I needed was to show one 8conviction, and I had a dozen or more to choose from. Piece of cake – but my rational assessment wasn’t enough to overcome her beliefs. Confirmation bias has a lot of power.

I read left-of-center publications as well as the right. If I limit my information sources to those I want to hear, confirmation bias will beat me. Years back, on Facebook, I cited data from Texas that showed illegal immigrants have higher rates of criminal activities than US residents in general. Texas was the only state collecting and publishing such data. I got a reply telling me my data source was bad because some right-wing pundit had used the same information. I would have preferred more sources – but as a social scientist, you use the best you can get. Unlike Charlie Kirk, I responded to the insult with an insult of my own. A long time ago, Chet Apeland told me, “Mike, you don’t want to get in an argument with an idiot – after the third exchange, nobody will know which is which.” Chet’s rule has been good advice. Whenever I have ignored it I’ve looked like a jerk.

Some of the best information on a specific topic available deals with abortion. Every state collects, maintains, and publishes data on who gets abortions. It’s there. So when a lady from DC – a lawyer – told me that American Indians get abortions at the same rate as white women, I could check. They don’t. At least in South Dakota, American Indian women are less likely. What really shocked me was how much more likely South Dakota’s few black women were to get abortions (than whites). South Dakota is a state that is mostly white, then a lot of American Indians. Still, I was more shocked by the Attorney giving misinformation to the State Demographer. I’m still not sure if she was ignorant, or just believe that she was credible and I would accept her statement without checking.

The data doesn’t affect the argument – one side argues for reproductive rights, the other argues against killing babies. It’s hard to debate when each side has it’s own topic. Makes confirmation bias even more powerful.

Getting back to the murder of Charlie Kirk – when the photo of the assassin’s rifle showed up, I saw a comment: “That’s not a military rifle.” The rifle was a scoped 1898 Mauser with a black synthetic stock. The best guess I’ve seen is that over 100 million of these rifles were made between 1898 and the end of World War II. The 1898 Mauser might be the statistician’s primary example of a military rifle. I suspect I read an opinion from someone who first thinks of an AK-47 (also 100 million produced) or the AR-15 platform (over 30 million individually owned in 8the US). Confirmation bias leads to misinformation.

I have a tendency to distrust all politicians – regardless of party. They live in a world of partisan bias – and, like the lawyer lady, want me to accept that view without checking. It’s easy to get misinformation – and there will always be unpleasant facts. I thought that “Trust but verify.” came from Ronald Reagan – it turns out that it’s a Russian proverb. It was a good idea in a country where the line went “there is no truth (pravda) in the news (isvestia) there is no news (investia) in truth (pravda). It’s probably just as good an idea here and now.