Lecture 2B: Critical Thinking Manifesto, Bias, Detecting Illegitimate Biases, Legitimate and Illegitimate Arguments from Authority

Homework
1. What happened to Sidgwick and Ami's insights?
2. Discuss Moral Foundations results:  Expectations vs Actual.

Ami's Critical Thinking Manifesto
1. Thou shall ignore the conclusions of arguments and instead focus on evaluating the quality of support for a conclusion: thou shall align one's position with the strongest evidence and arguments.
2. Thou shall employ the principle of charity.  Thou shalt not commit the strawman fallacy.
3. Thou shalt not commit the fallacy of confirming instances; Thou shall evaluate the entire data set.
4. Thou shalt not concern one's self with absolute values (numerical, probabilistic, or moral); instead thou shall always concern one's self with relative values. This is particularly important when assessing risk.
5. Thou shalt not use anecdotes as evidence unless one's conclusion is that one is a poor reasoner.

Relative Risk: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm
Risk vs hazard based policy: https://risk-monger.com/2016/05/04/risk-based-or-hazard-based-regulation/
"Stickiness" of false beliefs and effect of biases: http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/i-dont-want-to-be-right

Introduction Biases Activity. Google and Cancer Causes/Cures.

Bias, Illegitimate Bias, Vested Interests, and Conflicts of Interest
A.  Definitions
Bias:  An inclination or prejudice for or against. (Examples of bias in social media)
Illegitimate Bias: A bias that interferes with one's judgment or reasoning.
Illegitimate Bias Vs. Legitimate Bias:
Vested Interest:  When the arguer stands to gain in some important way if their conclusion is true.  I.e., there is a personal benefit to the arguer if their position turns out to be true or is believed to be true.
Conflict of Interest:  Vested interest on steroids.   "A conflict of interest is a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgement or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest."[1] Primary interest refers to the principal goals of the profession or activity, such as the protection of clients, the health of patients, the integrity of research, and the duties of public office. Secondary interest includes not only financial gain but also such motives as the desire for professional advancement and the wish to do favours for family and friends, but conflict of interest rules usually focus on financial relationships because they are relatively more objective, fungible, and quantifiable." (Wikipedia)

B.  Examples
Climate Denial Arguments from Vested Interests
Wakefield
Kids for Cash
Oil and Gas Policy and Political Contributions
Oil and Gas and Politicians
Alcohol Industry and Marijuana Legislation
Immigration Law and Private Prison Industry

C.  Example of HW:  Conflicts of Interest in Politics?  Say it ain't so!
Oil and Gas
http://votesmart.org/

Arguments from Authority:  Legitimate and Illegitimate

Examples:
http://www.petitionproject.org/qualifications_of_signers.php
http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus
1.  Illegitimate Arguments from Authority

2.  Degrees of Legitimate Arguments from Authority

   a.  Individual vs. Individual

   b.  Individual vs. Consensus

   c.  Galileo/Einstein Argument

3.  Problems Part 1

   a.  Analogy to the overconfidence bias.   

   b.  Social Cognition and Evaluation of Experts and Scientific Consensus

Not all policy disputes turn on issues amenable to scientific investigation, of course, so no one 

would or should expect that what scientists have to say will resolve every conflict. But when empirical 

assessments of risk and risk abatement are exactly what members of the public are fighting about, why is the prevailing opinion of scientists—on questions only they are equipped to answer—so infrequently 

treated as decisive? 

   c.  Effect of Political Bias on Perception of Scientific Authority

4.  Solutions: 

   a.  The secret philosophy professors don't want you to know:  The Ol' Switcheroo
   b.  A priori agreement.
5. Articles:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/harry-collins-inquiring-minds-science-studies-saves-scientific-expertise
Periodic table of Expertise
Problems with Online Pay-to-Publish Journals


Homework:
1.  Go to http://influenceexplorer.com/ and pick an industry.
2.  Summarize which party is getting most of the money and by about how much.
3.  Pick one or two of the top recipients then put their name in the search field of http://votesmart.org/. "Voting Record" should come up in the search results.
4.  Look to see how they voted on legislation that involves the industry/interest group from which they received their funding.
5.  Write a brief paragraph on your own thoughts on the relationship between money and democracy. How well are the general public's interests represented by elected officials?   Propose 1 or two reforms and provide an argument for how your reforms might address particular problems with the existing system.
6. The Revolving Door and Financial Regulation