Often, I feel like an outsider looking in on how the rest of the world lives, bewildered by all these ‘unseen rules’ that guide human interactions. The fact that I am heavily ‘Aspergers’ probably has a lot to do with it: I compensate for my lack of intuitive understanding by obsessively observing and cataloging behaviour.
Noticing how people argue seemed relatively easy: the evidence was ‘out there’. But understanding what convinces people to change their minds….that I have found much tougher. I can see the arguments ‘out there’, in the open, but the ‘convincing’ process itself is inside a person’s head – hidden from direct observation. It was easy to see that some arguments were more effective than others, but it always puzzled me how come an argument could convince some people, but not others. Do not all people undergo similar thought processes?
I’m still not sure I get it. But, it seems to me that both how much of an ‘investment’, and of what type it is, is of importance.
A few years ago, something unusual happened: I was wrong. Yes, it does happen, occasionally…. :0)
During a get-together, I got into a heated-yet-amicable discussion with someone on an inconsequential topic – and, not having proof for either side on hand, we came to an impasse. Another person came in, who just could have had the answer, so we asked her. As she began to speak, it became apparent that the information was not favourable to my position, but the general revelry of the get-together was beginning to drown out her voice. So, I started to ‘shush’ everyone, so we could hear the rest of what she had to say.
My opponent, sparks of laughter in his eyes, commented that perhaps it was not in my interest to be getting her to speak, as she’ll only prove me wrong! This puzzled me, and I said so: I’d rather be proven wrong, than persist in an incorrect position. It was my opponent’s turn to be puzzled – it seemed this approach, which I took to be the only plausible one, had never occurred to him.
This gave me a big clue: some people cannot be convinced, because they value winning an argument (and not ‘loosing face’) higher than they value being right. And if this could be true of an inconsequential thing, among friends – where laughter was the measure of the volume of the argument – how much more true this would be for ‘big things’!
One of the ‘big debates’ that is going on now centers on the veracity of the ‘Anthropogenic Climate Change’ model. I was one of the earliest proponents of ‘global warming’ – it sounded reasonable to me. However, over more than a decade of reading up on the underlying science, the IPCC reports, and after speaking with some of the scientists (and an economist)who were part of the whole UN shindig about it, I have concluded that it is much more of a political tool for behaviour modification than it is a scientific theory…
Not that long ago, I got into a discussion about ACC with an intelligent, educated young man – and an excellent debater – whose positions fall far left of the centre. I made an observation that most of the ACC’s proponents were left of centre, and he accused me of politicizing the debate. Yet, he was logical, and challenged me to convince him that ACC is a load of dingo’s kidneys, without ‘politicizing’ it.
So, I explained a lot of the ideas that the ACC’s proponents are using, and explained the underlying science behind them…and why this model does not fit the scientific evidence. I also explained the IPCC’s process in writing the report, and how the methodology was used to exclude science to play significant role in the report. I even pointed out a few bits where frustrated scientists used wording that acted as ‘red flags’ to other scientists, indicating the unsoundness of the statement.
Nothing seemed to work. I simply did not know how to convince this man. Frustrated, I made an offhanded comment about how the whole pseudoscience of ACC was started when Margaret Thatcher commissioned a report that would show ‘fossil fuels should be abandoned in favour of nuclear power’, in order to use it as a weapon with which to end a pesky coal-miners strike….
I was quite floored when he retorted: “You might have mentioned Thatchers involvment at the start and I would have instantaneously lost all of my credible thought procceses and immediately jumped on your wagon.”
Perhaps it is beyond me to figure out what convinces people…
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 