The Misinformation Dis(mis)course Revisited : The Losing Battle of The Academic Expertocracy — Guest Post by Jaap Hanekamp

Introduction

Some time ago I wrote about The science of fake news. I must confess, I find this misinformation discourse thoroughly boring. Why? Because it reveals the most plebeian of human characteristics: power, money, fame.

The misinformation discourse noxiously smells of a power-grab made by the academic expertocracy increasingly lacking in authority of their own making.

As a matter of fact, we don’t need this whole debate as philosophy is filled to the brim with quality treaties on truth, falsity and, of course, thanks to Harry Frankfurt, bullshit.

The misinformation debate is full of the latter.

Nevertheless, the Journal Nature added to the pile with a ‘new’ piece: Misinformation remains a threat to democracy. Fortunately, the authors of this Nature-comment show their hand relatively quickly:

The promotion of opinions that go against expert consensus is often done by individuals who present themselves as heroic rebels. But in many instances in which an expert consensus is questioned, there is evidence that the opposing arguments are untenable or deny fundamental knowledge and are driven by political or ideological motivations.

This is a massive howler. I will respond to this and other ‘gems’ on three levels: philosophical, rhetorical, and political, in this order. Let’s get started.

From the philosophical …

What is it with this misinformation debate? It seems so ‘academic’, yet it is so very very simple. But first, let’s do some defining. This what the American Psychological Association (APA) has to say:

“Misinformation is false or inaccurate information—getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to mislead—intentionally misstating the facts.”

Okay, this is straightforward enough. However, in definitions like this, facts are implied as unassailable truths that seemingly reveal all there is to know about the world. Let me explain (with added emphasis):

“… With the rise of populist political movements, along with a general attitude of suspicion towards ‘experts’ in some communities, misinformation researchers — like climate scientists and public-health authorities before them — have at times been portrayed as unelected arbiters of truth and subjected to harsh criticism.

Some critics, even in the scholarly community, have claimed that concerns related to the spread of misinformation reflect a type of ‘moral panic’. They think that the threat has been overblown; that classifying information as false is generally problematic because the truth is difficult to determine; and that countermeasures might violate democratic principles because people have a right to believe and express what they want. This trend must be reversed, because it is based on selective reading of the available evidence.

We encourage researchers all over the world to redouble their efforts to combat misinformation, and we offer evidence to show that the deployment of countermeasures is valid and warranted. The Holocaust did happen. COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives. There was no widespread fraud in the 2020 US presidential election. The evidence for each of these facts has been established beyond reasonable doubt, but false beliefs on each of these topics remain widespread. …”

This somewhat long quote is a veritable scientific and philosophical monstrosity. Centrally, empirical scientific research – on the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, climate science, election fraud – only delivers contingent and never necessary truths.

Scientific statements, thus, are conditionally true on the facts and the evidence we actually have at our disposal (mathematics in science is an exception, of course)! Empirical research never dishes out irrefutable, necessary, truths that reveal all!

That is known as the false ideology of scientism.

And guess what? Our evidential base always changes with advancing scientific research. Sometimes these advances confirm what we already (think we) know, up to that point; more often these advances shift our previous knowledge base or, more rarely, even require our knowledge base to be replaced all-together.

That is why scientific research is so exciting. The history of chemical research is full of evidential surprises.

The authors however regard empirical research in the fields of their choosing – climatology, vaccinology, politics – delivering necessary truths that can never be questioned, certainly not by the ‘public’.

That is a critical category mistake. Again, empirical scientific work only gives us contingent truths. That is science of philosophy 101, but the authors seemingly didn’t get the memo or refused to reveal it to the public.

… to the rhetorical …

Be that as it may, they insidiously try to sell their glaringly muddled, bad, argument by throwing in the Holocaust example in their contentious mix of topics. I will return to the contentiousness in a minute.

The Holocaust is a past event that has a massive evidential basis in for example innumerable testimonies, photographs, film material, the locations of extermination camps, the material evidence found there, and so on.

Denying the Holocaust as a historical factual event is blindingly stupid and, of course, outright immoral.

Thát sets the tone for the other examples that the authors bring to bear, for example “COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives.” In light of the Holocaust example they mention first, no less, it seems problematical to argue against such a statement.

But that is just rhetorics on the part of the authors and a transparently atrocious one at that.

Again: their statement on the COVID-19 vaccines is not a necessary truth but a contingent one based on the evidence we have. And that evidence is extremely limited. Let me spell this out.

Unreservedly (and too generously) granting the direct efficaciousness of said vaccines, what we do not know yet are the middle- and longterm side effects – morbidity and mortality of the global use of this medical technology.

It might take decades to observe and document those side effects and understand the full extent thereof. This is an unambiguous reference to future knowledge we do not have yet (if, that is, we are willing to gather such knowledge at all).

Therefore, the Holocaust reference is vapid and, worse, morally duplicitous as it refers to solid knowledge already gained of a past event, which, again, emphatically does not apply to the vaccine example.

Disturbingly, there are many examples of severe delayed adverse drug reactions. It took five years for the connection to be made between thalidomide taken by pregnant people and the impact on their children.

In 1958, thalidomide was produced in the UK under brand names such as Distaval, Tensival, Valgraine and Asmaval. An advertisement claimed that:

“Distaval can be given with complete safety to pregnant women and nursing mothers without adverse effect on mother or child.”

Sounds familiar? It should! So, the statement made in the Nature comment that this technology “saved millions of lives” simply cannot be made with any confidence whatsoever. Worse, it suggests that research into the side-effects is unnecessary as we already ‘know’ that “COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives.”

Talk about Machiavellian circularity!

We are still massively lacking in vaccine-data. Worse, these “saved lives” might be offset by serious side effects still ‘in the making’. In all seriousness, let’s hope that that is not the case.

… and the political

All in all, the authors make a laughably bad case for their expertocratic worldview they so forcefully try to pander to their readers. And here’s the kicker: the academic expertocracy is fighting a losing battle.

Losing to whom? To all those who simply do not accept the messaging done by academic experts; and rightly so. Let me reiterate the quote in the introduction:

The promotion of opinions that go against expert consensus is often done by individuals who present themselves as heroic rebels. But in many instances in which an expert consensus is questioned, there is evidence that the opposing arguments are untenable or deny fundamental knowledge and are driven by political or ideological motivations.

A Freudian slip if I ever saw one: it is the expertocracy that is driven by “political or ideological motivations” as there is lots of money to be made from all sorts of vested interest. The competing interest paragraph on the authors is quite revealing and, prophetically, not reprinted on the article’s pdf.

Indeed, their academic veneer is so thin as nearly invisible when they claim that “[t]his trend [“that truth is difficult to determine and that countermeasures might violate democratic principles because people have a right to believe and express what they want”] must be reversed, because it is based on selective reading of the available evidence.”

As such, the authors openly make a bad-faith case for censorship because they are experts and therefore the hoi polloi must listen to and accept the missives only the experts can dispense.

Put differently, the experts want to be sheltered against criticism that might openly disintegrate their favourite and lucrative worldview. In conclusion, they are classical bulverists so ingeniously characterised by C.S. Lewis :

…you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly.

Nuff said about this bullshit!

This post originally ran at Jaap’s blog.

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