Truth

Stimulated by the editorial article in the Economist I have been thinking more about the role of truth in society. The article was stimulated by the casual relationship Donald Trump has with the truth.  Few of Trump’s remarks bear any resemblance to truth such as Obama as the founder of ISIS. The article remarks that Trump gets away with his sayings which border on the insane because they correspond with some opinions. Increasingly truth is seen not as an objective fact supported by evidence but rather as a matter of opinion.

This attitude, it is suggested, is supported by the internet where wacky opinions widely enough circulated gain a veneer of truth. A depressing number of people subscribe to these opinions and in the self-reinforcing world of the internet gain credence.

It is not just on the internet but the viciously polarising TV in the US means that bigots need not step outside a medium which reinforces their opinions which then harden into convictions.

A nasty example is evolution. This is anl established scientific fact but  creationists argue the world was recently created and demand that their opinion is as valid as evolution. Without feeling any need to produce evidence  creationists demand that schools “teach the debate“ putting it on some kind of equal footing.

We have had a unpleasant example in the UK during the recent EU referendum. Leavers consistently asserted for example the EU cost 350m a week. This and many other pseudo facts they produced was a lie. Efforts by the BBC and others to tell the truth were drowned in the noise. In fact leavers are showing a tendency to try and shout down even mild contradictory voices. For example Mark Carney , governor of the Bank of England , was accused by a some on a parliamentary committee of exaggerating the effects of Brexit by predicting a recession. In fact he did no such thing and was able to rebut the allegations. However many will now recall the allegation but not the rebuttal.

An example of a lie which has gained some remarkable support is homeopathy. Essentially this revolves around the idea that a toxin diluted many millions of times may be a cure. There is no evidence homeopathy works beyond the known placebo effect ie.. If you believe something will help it probably will. Such is the power of the mind over the body that drug experimenters take special care to avoid the placebo effect confounding trials. The “gold standard” of trials is double blind which means neither experimenter or participant knows which is the test material and which is the control.

I’ve conducted double blind trials which sounds fairly easy but is difficult to do. I compromised that I knew what formulation was under test but evaluators didn’t. I could only afford to do a limited number of tests, too small for 99% confidence. I could only conclude that I had indications of the truth.

Establishing truth is often hard while having an opinion is easy. Increasingly folk in public life are forsaking the truth in favour of opinions. These opinions are quite capable of both being irrational and ignoring counter evidence.

I don’t have an answer to this other than to recognise a growing problem. Michael Gove has become notorious for saying effectively ignore experts, rely on your opinions. As someone has remarked sourly the next time his car breaks down he should not call in an expert just ask passers by for opinions.

The only item of advice I can suggest is that your news input should be from a wide variety of sources. Don’t rely on organs which reinforce your opinions but sometimes look at those that have a different view. Remember if someone asserts something “it ain’t necessarily so” ( as in the song in Porgy and Bess ) and ask yourself where is the evidence. Be sparing in taking anything as a matter of faith.