March 26, 2009

Learning How to Think -Nicholas Kristof

Mr. Kristof seems to be on a roll on the issue of bias. A few days ago he wrote consumers seek slanted news because we want information that lines up with our biases. I argued earlier with a friend that consumers are fed biased news from biased pundits, editors and talking heads.

I agree with Kristof that these so-called, often self-proclaimed experts and prognosticators should be held to account. The problem is: are there people unbiased enough to do so objectively? He leads with a mea culpa... a good start.

"The marketplace of ideas for now doesn’t clear out bad pundits and bad ideas partly because there’s no accountability. We trumpet our successes and ignore failures — or else attempt to explain that the failure doesn’t count because the situation changed or that we were basically right but the timing was off.

For example, I boast about having warned in 2002 and 2003 that Iraq would be a violent mess after we invaded. But I tend to make excuses for my own incorrect forecast in early 2007 that the troop “surge” would fail.

So what about a system to evaluate us prognosticators? Professor Tetlock suggests that various foundations might try to create a “trans-ideological Consumer Reports for punditry,” monitoring and evaluating the records of various experts and pundits as a public service. I agree: Hold us accountable!"

2 comments:

Unknown said...

What we have now is a massive, pointless debate club.. So, it is all about winning debates. It should be about working together to maximize valid information. And then use the resulting good information in trying to fix actual problems.

David Usher said...

Greasy is correct. Debates for most people, particularly those with giant egos, is all about winning. Instead, we need serious discussion with an agreed goal of solutions.

Most of the media 'talking heads' and 'typing pundits' fail to deliver that essential message. In fact, their success may depend on avoiding that outcome.