What Frustrates Me About the Unscientific World

We Talk to Convince, Not to Tell the Truth

I’m no scientist. I live in the mainstream world, where the waters are shallow and where everything and everyone is swept away by whatever happens to be in the news. There are no experts here, just people with strong opinions on the basis of, at best, anecdotal evidence. Hours of conversation about topics no one’s ever read a book about. I take part in this; there’s no avoiding it. I live in the unscientific world.

But I’m interested in science. Hard science, especially. I wish I’d studied it formally instead of languages and business, but because I haven’t, I read books and watch videos about physics, biology, chemistry, et cetera. Last week, I was watching a video about gravitational waves when I finally understood what bothered me about the unscientific world. The root cause of my frustration.

When Truth Is the End Goal

In the world of science, truth is the end goal. The scientific method relies heavily on a scientist’s ability to reproduce the results of an empirical study. Results that are unfalsifiable or cannot be reproduced are not considered valid, and any theories built on those results are not considered credible (they’re considered pseudoscience). On the flip side, studies that we can consistently reproduce represent a slice of truth about our world.

If we were to destroy all our scientific knowledge and start from scratch, we would rediscover how gravity works, rediscover what atoms are composed of, rediscover how life evolves over time. Perhaps our knowledge wouldn’t be exactly the same, as there are bound to be flaws in our existing theories, but it would be pretty darn close. That’s because truth exists outside of our imaginations, and science aims to discover and describe those truths about our world. It’s a noble goal.

When Truth Is Not the End Goal

In the unscientific world, few care about the truth. We care about our beliefs, which represent our assumptions about the world and our experience with the world. It’s hard for us to change those beliefs, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. If anything, we dig our heels in deeper, a phenomenon that’s called belief perseverance. It’s what explains flat-Earthers and anti-vaxxers.

This is harmful on two levels. First, when it happens at scale. If enough people disregard the truth, society breaks up into opposing factions that represent different beliefs. This has happened in the United States, where tens of millions of Americans will once again vote for Trump, who told six times as many lies in the first ten months of his presidency as Obama did during his eight presidential years.

To Trump’s voters, that doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter that he’s been impeached twice, indicted thrice, or that he sexually assaults women. What matters is that Trump represents their beliefs. He’s exceptionally good at understanding what his voters believe and then pushing the pain points in those beliefs. An accurate representation of reality never enters the picture.

The second way this is harmful is when it hurts other people. Believe whatever you want to believe about vaccines. But a parent who decides not to vaccinate their child because they rejected the truth about vaccines is morally reprehensible. Believe whatever you want to believe about climate change. But a politician who brings a snowball to congress because he doesn’t want to educate himself on climate change is morally reprehensible (and also funny, in a doomsday kind of way).

Now Here’s a Good Use Case for AI

I realize I’ve probably painted a rosier picture of the scientific world than exists in reality. There’s bound to be infighting and corruption, because scientists are human and nothing’s perfect. But by and large, the truth is still the guiding principle that unites scientists. Most faces look in the same direction.

I also realize I’ve chosen easy examples. The truth is well-known about Trump, climate change, or vaccinations. Most topics aren’t as clear-cut on the truth or have different ways of looking at the truth. But that’s not my point. What frustrates me about the unscientific world is that we don’t seem to care about figuring out the truth anymore.

Politicians rely on alternative facts, the media doesn’t hold them (or themselves) to account anymore, and the internet reinforces whatever you want to believe. We live in filter bubbles and don’t question our strongly-held opinions. This is how a society decays.

It’s time to put the truth on its pedestal again. Let’s aim to be discerning with our opinions or even refrain from having an opinion if the topic is about something we’re woefully uneducated about. This is doable on an individual level, but hard on a societal level.

So I thought about a good use case for AI.

Imagine AI as a real-time fact-checker for anyone who says anything in public. Politicians first. Whenever a claim is made or a statistic is quoted, the AI would reference the source of the fact and provide additional information. Perhaps even color-code the statement depending on the truth of it.

It would be an imperfect and messy system, because the truth is often vague or narrow. We’d need to ensure the AI learns from reliable data sources and has the ability to understand context and nuance, which is certainly not a given. But it’s not an impossibility either, and it would be a whole lot better than the say-whatever-you-want world we’re increasingly living in.

You can’t expect people to change their ways by themselves. You need to create systems that nudge people toward desired behavior. The internet, social media, and modern media incentives seem to push society toward undesirable behavior. AI has the possibility to worsen that, too. Except if we use it for good. As a fact-checker. Perhaps something worth exploring?