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Volume 3 Number 11 April
22, 2005 |
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The tyranny of false controversy Just because one person disagrees, does it make the
issue 'controversial?' William James was giving
a public lecture on astronomy, describing how the earth spins around itself
as it orbits the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a
vast collection of stars called our galaxy. He was in full flight when a
little old lady interrupted from the back of the auditorium. "Young man,
excuse me, but you’ve got it wrong. The world rests on the back of a giant
turtle." William James was slightly taken aback, but ready for a
discussion. He asked, "If that is true, madam, what is the turtle standing
on?" "Another turtle," she shot back. Gently, now, "And
what is that turtle standing on?" "Don’t get smart with me, young
man. It’s turtles all the way down." Most people believe the earth is round. Suppose that now I join a far-out cult that holds a core belief, based on no science whatsoever, that the earth is flat. So, at every opportunity, my co-cultists and I (all 54 of us), yell loudly that the round-earthers are in heresy and that everyone should join our unscientific belief. Does this make the roundness of the earth "controversial." Or, assuming that even one complaint creates "controversy" in the strict sense, is it controversial in a way that is at all important? And, more to the point, should everyone else have to account for our view when discussing the earth's geometry? Now, it's important to note at this point that scientists will have all sorts of discussions about just how round the earth is, or whether it's more oval, or lumpy, or sagging -- and not perfectly round. However, for most people's purposes, the earth is pretty round, and the scientists' disagreements over the details don't mean that the flat-earth claim has any legitimacy. Would it gain legitimacy if the flat-earthers were able to make a lot of noise? Does pervasiveness or volume increase the legitimacy of their claims? I say not, and the notion that it does may not be a well-documented logical fallacy, but it's fallacious nonetheless. Why is this important? Well, it's been bothering me a lot lately. Actually, it's been bothering me for a long time, and it seems to be getting worse. I'm concerned because it's bitten me in the butt a couple of times, and a "pressing issue" is anything that happens to or near a columnist. What's important to the rest of you is that it's affecting you in subtle ways that you might not even realize. The most important thing is that the media have been pretty well hoodwinked by the fallacious reasoning, and that affects the news you read in your daily paper. Where the media have been led astray is that they think that to be "balanced" or "objective" they have to present claim and counterclaim in every story that even mentions a supposedly "controversial" subject. Where they've completely slipped their trolley is in what they consider "controversial," usually defined by those with the biggest and loudest mouths. In the past -- not so much today -- newspaper editors and therefore writers thought that if they carried something negative about the tobacco industry, they also had to present a counterclaim from industry spokespeople. The tobacco industry had spokespeople ready and willing to proffer a not-very-original statement as to why the painstaking research was "wrong." The bottom line is that everyone knows, and has known for a long time, that there is a very close link between tobacco smoking and cancer, as well as other diseases. That connection has not been controversial for decades, but the industry -- well-funded, persistent, and loud -- convinced the media that for them to be balanced, they had to repeat the industry propaganda every time there was a story about tobacco. A more recent and personal example. Currently, I'm eking out a living as a freelance writer, and one of the newspapers for which I write asked me to cover a talk by a researcher involved in stem-cell research. The talk was extremely informative, well-attended, and well-received. I wrote what I thought was a good piece that, in the short space allotted, captured the gist of what the speaker said. Later that night, I got a concerned call from an editor at the "mother ship." Stem-cell research is controversial, he said, and the newspaper policy is that stories about controversial issues had to have some statements from the opposition. But there was no controversy at the talk. It was attended by several hundred people in what is arguably one of the most conservative zip codes in the country (old-money and coupon-clipping conservative, not the other kind), and yet everyone at the talk was interested, inquisitive, and from the comments afterward, supportive. That, of course, didn't satisfy the editor. Policy is policy -- and the actual facts of the event be damned! Could I find someone to say something in opposition? Well, no I couldn't, mostly because, as a matter of ethics, I refuse to create a "controversy" where none exists. Had I been writing a feature story or an explanatory story about stem-cell research, I'd definitely mention that it is a hot-button issue for politicians of all stripes, but the fact remained that the story I was sent to cover was remarkably uncontroversial. And I wouldn't make it otherwise. Whether stem-cell research is "controversial" is an open question. Many people, according to polls, support it. Some oppose it on totally unscientific grounds, and still other people are uncertain because they don't fully understand it. What was interesting was that the editor who was so worried about a lack of controversial statements ended up cutting out the portions of my story that could have helped un-confuse a lot of people. Just to bring you up to speed, the biggest concern for a lot of people is the use of the term "embryonic stem cells." This leads most people to conclude that the cells, by necessity, come from embryos that could, if treated properly, develop into babies. Usually, the cells come from embryos that will be destroyed no matter what, and banning the research won't prevent that. However, because that scenario bothers a lot of people, the researchers have developed ways to get the cells they need by activating unfertilized eggs through parthenogenesis. These activated eggs could never, in any scenario, develop into an embryo or a baby. However, like cells taken from embryos, these cells have the ability to become any bodily tissue, leading to what researchers hope will be cures or treatments for a wide range of degenerative diseases. The use of the word "embryonic" is what scares a lot of people, even when the organisms aren't, and won't be, embryos, and the speaker suggested that a more correct term for the cells would be "pluripotent," meaning they had the ability to transform themselves into any bodily tissue. This alone might put a different and less hysterical light on the issue. The problem for the
researchers is that, thanks to a piece of poorly written and draconian
legislation slipped into a budget bill, of all things, research involving
cells activated by parthenogenesis can't receive federal funds. This is
hampering more extensive research in the So, much of the alleged controversy surrounding stem cells is really misunderstanding, and a lot of people's reservations might be allayed by proper information, something that will be slow in coming if the political opposition, pushing it's own anti-science agenda, gets to cloud every discussion with a harangue on the premise that "balance" requires it. We see the same thing with discussions of evolution and so-called "creationism." If you step back and take a look at it, there is no controversy. There might be some disagreements among scientists about the inner workings of evolution, but it's pretty certain that it's a real phenomenon -- much like the roundness of the earth. People are free to believe otherwise. They can believe any of the creation myths from the Book of Genesis or another of their own choosing, from among the hundreds of creation myths. (My personal favorite is from the Apocryphon of John in the Nag Hammadi texts, although I understand it as metaphysical poetry and not scientific fact.) They can believe, like the woman in the famous anecdote, that the world rests on the back of a giant turtle. The fact that they do, however, doesn't make evolution "controversial," any more than there is true controversy over whether the earth is round. The media are complicit when they buy into the notion that there is a controversy and that it is a matter of "debate." There is no debate on the basic scientific facts. The media have been led astray because they have lost sight of what it means to be "balanced" or "objective." For them, as I tried to explain to the editor who wanted more controversy, the job is to, over time, present all sides of an issue; to make sure that all interests are represented, and that all parties with a legitimate viewpoint are heard. It doesn't mean that each and every story needs to contain point and counterpoint. And it doesn't mean that every idea is of equal value. They don't need to give William James" turtle lady the same coverage they give to people from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, if they need to give her any coverage at all. I don't think they do. The problem is that there are people with good PR backing, a ton of money, and a raft of political connections to lend credence to the notion that there is "controversy" over some issues that should, in a sane world, be fairly uncontroversial. By blowing smoke into every discussion on the issue, they are able to keep a lot of people in a fog and maintain the erroneous illusion of "controversy." This discussion plays nicely into the notion of the Sorites paradox I discussed last week. There is virtually no subject you can mention that will not have at least one, and maybe many, naysayers. And, at some point, we will consider a subject has enough uncertainty to make it truly "controversial.' The question is just where that point is. |
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© Copyright 2005 Carlton Vogt |