Reclaiming Objectivity

We talk a lot about the feckless laziness of the mainstream media, how their role has morphed from "seekers of objective truth" to "professional enablers of political mendacity". A prime factor in this decline has been the replacement of objectivity with contrived even-handedness. The contrivance is that the even-handedness is being put forth as if it were the same thing as objectivity.

There are many examples of this syndrome, but the one most noticeable right now is the ongoing silliness of the "intelligent design" debate. The fact that there's a "debate" in the first place is a clue as to the dysfunction at hand here. No serious person in the scientific community is debating this, because there is simply no debate to be had among empirical realists -- which is what scientists are supposed to be the epitome of.

Now, I have certainly belabored the ID vs. evolution argument enough to where I really don't want to bother with it for the time being. What I want to talk about is how the media have allowed the faux debate to be kept alive. It is one thing to report that idiot school boards in Kansas or Pennsylvania are decreeing this or that -- after all, that is what constitutes actual news, reporting factual occurrences.

The problem is that, in a mealy-mouthed attempt to "flesh out" a story, the media grabs a person from each side and lets each say their piece. That is not news; that is point/counterpoint opinion-mongering, which is what they were really after anyway. The goal here is not to resolve the question, but rather to stoke the controversy with manufactured conflict.

It gets worse when political figures consistently come down on the wrong side of science -- that is, the rational explanation for empirical reality. Thus, George W. Bush can say in all seriousness that he believes that ID should be taught in science class alongside evolution. He can even bookend it with his sincere belief that Rafael Palmeiro has never taken steroids. How does he know the latter? Because he likes Palmeiro.

To rational people, this is a real insight into how the guy's brain works. We've already discussed that episode, and so has everyone else on the internets. But the thing is, nobody in the media calls him on it. Think about it -- he voiced his uneducated opinion about subjects he knows nothing about (again), and nobody blinks. It's as if they have come to expect it from him. Stem cells? Blabidy-blabidy culture of life. Evolution? Blabidy-blabidy both sides of the story. Simple solutions to simple problems.

Except it's not nearly that simple. If the debate were over the "theory" of gravity, and the dominant religious sect just decided amongst themselves that the Bible don't mention no gravity, therefore it doesn't exist, but hey here's a biblical alternative that says that angel wings and happy prayerful thoughts are really what holds airplanes up in the sky -- do you just accept it all as an honest difference of opinion, or do you recognize it for the willful ignorance that it is?

That's what we're facing here. It's all being presented as two divergent but equal opinions. And they are not. One can be reliably and consistently observed through the universally accepted process of scientific method; the other is an open-ended fable pulled from the asses of hucksters who bullshit rubes into thinking that Noah had dinosaurs on the ark.

It's old wine in new bottles; it's tent-revivalism dressed up as science for people who have no acquaintance with science at all. And a responsible media would say so; they'd go to the conferences and let everyone know just what kind of crazy bullshit these people are regurgitating, and using our tax dollars to ruin the brains of schoolchildren.

The media thinks it needs to dance politely around anything and everything that has to do with religion. Heaven forfend people of faith should have that faith tested by exculpatory facts, or even a different perspective. No, the media think they have to adopt the cheap posture of pretending that flat-earth thinking is just a different view of the shape of the earth, rather than the outmoded idiocy that it is.

And the even-handed stance applies to pretty much all aspects of how this administration is presented by the media, right down to foreign policy coverage. How the hell else does a propaganda tool like Saint Judy Miller get made into a martyr? Because no one working in the bigs wants to go digging in that part of the graveyard. They're scared shitless that they'll be back doing the weather in Dubuque.

But if they're not going to get at the truth, or tell it when they find it, then maybe they should get sent back to Dubuque. Fuck 'em if they're not going to do their jobs with competence and pride.

Paul Krugman has more:

There are several reasons why fake research is so effective. One is that nonscientists sometimes find it hard to tell the difference between research and advocacy - if it's got numbers and charts in it, doesn't that make it science?

Even when reporters do know the difference, the conventions of he-said-she-said journalism get in the way of conveying that knowledge to readers. I once joked that if President Bush said that the Earth was flat, the headlines of news articles would read, "Opinions Differ on Shape of the Earth." The headlines on many articles about the intelligent design controversy come pretty close.

Finally, the self-policing nature of science - scientific truth is determined by peer review, not public opinion - can be exploited by skilled purveyors of cultural resentment. Do virtually all biologists agree that Darwin was right? Well, that just shows that they're elitists who think they're smarter than the rest of us.

There ya go, that's the reflexive attitude right there. The thing is, those "elitist" scientists are smarter the rest of us. They spent years in real colleges and universities busting their ass to get a degree, while you knocked up your high school sweetheart and took the first McJob you could find. They're smarter than you, even if you go to church for the next eighty years and repeat every verse in the Bible one thousand times. Okay? Some people are smarter than other people. Such is life. Get over it, and realize when you're outclassed.

Digby puts it wonderfully, as always:

Honestly, this blind defense of Palmiero has little to do with loyalty. It's about Bush's faith based approach to everything. If he believes it, it must be true. He does not use reason to come to conclusions. He makes decisions based on feelings and beliefs and "instinct." In this case, his instinct is that Palmiero is a good guy and therefore could not have lied. His "instinct" is that creationism makes sense and therefore, is as legitimate as evolution. His "instinct" was that Saddam was a threat and therefore, we had to invade.

We have a man with a child's mind running this country. Millions of us can see this as clearly as we can see his face on our television screens. People can call me an elitist and a snob for pointing this out but I will never stop. It's like telling me it's rude to notice that the sun came up this morning or that gravity exists. It is observable fact that this president is intellectually stunted. I'm not going to pretend otherwise so that certain people's feelings don't get hurt. I'll lose my mind.

Amen. We have got to stop dancing around these sick, empty equivalencies, these callow attempts to equate superstition with empirical reality. A case in point was something I had the misfortune to overhear on the morning "news" as I was eating my breakfast. Apparently some asshole is selling a mystical pierogi on E-Bay. This pierogi has the image of Jesus in it. It's a holy pierogi. Do the newscasters crack on this, let everyone in on the joke, maybe opine that the guy auctioning this thing off is a con artist, and any potential bidders would be morons? Of course not. We mustn't ever offend people who will go and pray and leave votive candles before every inventively-shaped dried soap film or oil slick, be it on a bank window or a freeway underpass.

This is ridiculous. Sincerity is a fine quality; it does not automatically grant the gift of holy certitude. The Spanish Inquisition was quite sincere about what they were doing. Nobody doubts Osama bin Laden's sincerity. Even Bush, dipshit that he is, is probably quite sincere about many of the stupid things that tumble out of his piehole.

American culture, enabled by a complaisant media, equates mere sincerity with actual knowledge, without imparting the cold hard fact that knowledge is work. Anyone can be sincere about anything; there's no skill or talent or much effort involved there. But to acquire meaningful levels and disciplines of knowledge takes time, and patience, and effort. And we are a spoiled, narcissistic, now culture, post-ironic post-cynic self-indulgent slacker cool, so effort is for suckers. Why spend time cultivating a skill or learning a craft, when you can do something stupid and instantly become meta-famous through the contrived prism of "reality" shows?

Well, this very attitude permeates many aspects of our society, and one of those aspects is how we have commodified knowledge and the acquisition thereof. That's ironic, considering this is the vaunted Age of Information, and as such, we have vastly more informational resources at hand than ever before -- exponentially more than even just ten short years ago.

The problem is, since we worship and pursue the almighty dollar like Rosie O'Donnell pursues Ring Dings and Devil Dogs, the rate of increase of our access to useful information has far outstripped our collective ability to absorb and process even a meaningful sliver of it all. And since we are undisciplined, we don't even try to conquer just one worthwhile subject -- say, being able to locate Canada on a globe.

So we just keep careening our way through life, fat, drunk, and stupid, without even the goddamned common sense enough to know snake-oil scams when they stare us in the face and slap us upside the head. No wonder the Chinese and Koreans are laughing their asses off at us right now. They're cloning dogs and pirating movies and loaning us ever more money to buy more shit from them, and watching us argue over something with about as much scientific validity as a pet rock.

As P.T. Barnum famously said, it is morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.