
Beware Simple Stories - ingve
http://www.macdrifter.com/2015/05/beware-simple-stories.html
======
bdhe
I think everyone should know of the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. To quote
from Michael Crichton:

> Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all
> experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I
> call it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and
> by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the
> effect, than it would otherwise have.) Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia
> effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some
> subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business.
> You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding
> of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it
> actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call
> these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any
> case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a
> story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read
> with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more
> accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read.
> You turn the page, and forget what you know.

> That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I’d point out it does not operate in
> other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates
> or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is
> the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means
> untruthful in one part, untruthful in all. But when it comes to the media,
> we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other
> parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. The only
> possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.

Very intriguing when you think about it.

~~~
yongjik
Rather ironic, considering that Michael Chrichton thought Global Warming
wasn't a big deal[1]:

> At the end of the book, Crichton gives us an author’s message. In it, he re-
> iterates the main points of his thesis, that there are some who go too far
> to drum up support (and I have some sympathy with this), and that because we
> don’t know everything, we actually know nothing (here, I beg to differ). He
> also gives us his estimate, ~0.8 C for the global warming that will occur
> over the next century and claims that, since models differ by 400% in their
> estimates, his guess is as good as theirs. This is not true. (...)

> Finally, in an appendix, Crichton uses a rather curious train of logic to
> compare global warming to the 19th Century eugenics movement. He argues,
> that since eugenics was studied in prestigious universities and supported by
> charitable foundations, and now, so is global warming, they must somehow be
> related. Presumably, the author doesn’t actually believe that foundation-
> supported academic research ipso facto is evil and mis-guided, but that is
> an impression that is left.

Kind of makes me wonder how much I can trust Crichton on anything. :)

[1]
[http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michae...](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michael-
crichtons-state-of-confusion/)

~~~
guscost
I don't see how this criticism has anything to do with his point. But if you
must, and if you would like anyone else to take your criticism seriously, I
suggest citing Crichton's work and addressing it directly. Here's a lecture
that touches on the subject:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDCCvOv3qZY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDCCvOv3qZY)

[http://www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?id=111](http://www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?id=111)

It contains one of my favorite observations:

"...most people make the assumption of linearity in a world that is largely
non-linear."

~~~
yongjik
Well, the whole point of Crichton's thesis quoted by bdhe was (paraphrasing)
"You can judge how much you can trust somebody, by first observing how much
you can trust them on some topic you know about."

It's only fair that I get to apply his own point to himself. A fine novelist
he may be, but climate expert he isn't.

~~~
sukilot
He may be no expert, but his novels come from thorough amateur research, like
Neal Stephenson.

------
paulsutter
Funny thing is Gladwell admits he doesn't think coherency or consistency
matter, he just wants to sell books:

"As I’ve written more books I’ve realised there are certain things that
writers and critics prize, and readers don’t. So we’re obsessed with things
like coherence, consistency, neatness of argument. Readers are indifferent to
those things." \- Malcolm Gladwell

Edit: I stand by my interpretation. Gladwell's books aren't useful sources of
knowledge, but they ARE a commercial gem. He takes a clear intuitive idea, and
wraps enough text around it to fill a book. So high-concept that anyone can
discuss his books at a cocktail party, even if they havent read it. Maximum
virality. It does sell a lot of books.

~~~
philh
That quote doesn't support your claim. "Writers and critics value X, readers
don't" doesn't necessarily* imply "X doesn't sell books", and it definitely
doesn't imply "and selling books is all I care about".

*Readers might not care about X, but they might care about what critics think of a book. This makes sense: as a reader, I'm probably not capable of critically evaluating the arguments in a book, so I have to rely on critics to find out whether or not the arguments are solid.

~~~
wellpast
> I'm probably not capable of critically evaluating the arguments in a book

That, my friend, is a skill you can acquire and grow.

Since we're on the topic of popular science books, here's a reasonable read
that can help you start improving:

[http://www.amazon.com/Art-Thinking-Clearly-Rolf-
Dobelli/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Art-Thinking-Clearly-Rolf-
Dobelli/dp/0062219693/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1431444586&sr=8-1&keywords=thinking+clearly)

~~~
philh
It was something of an exaggeration. I'm capable of doing many things that
realistically, I'm not going to bother with.

But I don't think "clear thinking" is a solution to this problem. I can read a
book and say "the facts as presented don't fit the narrative", which is what I
did with paulsutter.

If I'm really dedicated, I can look up references. I can bypass the paywall,
read a journal article, and see that the author has misrepresented the
results.

But I can't read a book and say "wait, you're completely ignoring the effect
that in-fighting in the Roman senate had on politics in Britain circa A.D.
50", because I don't know anything about that subject. I don't even know that
it's relevant. Unknown unknowns.

I can't know everything, so I have to rely on other people.

------
learnstats2
This is very important.

Kahneman/Gladwell etc are selling attractive and novel conceptualisations and
stories, not complete science.

A lot of what they are saying attracts attention and becomes more likely to be
researched further. This is important and great and sometimes leads to
disproofs such as the example here.

There is a bias here: the ideas presented in popular science books are more
likely to be disproven, just because they are more likely to warrant further
study. It's not that the ideas are necessarily more likely to be false - this
is an important distinction and I think the article misses this point.

But, even when disproven, the popular science books still remain on the shelf
and the wrong ideas from them still get repeated widely. On forums including
HN.

The authors still want to sell their old books, even when they contain ideas
now known to be wrong. And the stories they tell are still attractive, even if
they are misleading a whole generation of people.

~~~
cousin_it
Please, please, pretty please don't lump in Kahneman with Gladwell. One is a
Nobel laureate scientist, the other is a hack writer.

~~~
learnstats2
I agree totally with your point, but they do belong together in the context I
wrote about.

Each of them have the goal of selling books.

------
Yalqaysi
Whenever something becomes mainstream it's because it has been stripped of
deeper context to appeal to the consuming masses. Pop Science will inevitably
piss off scientists just like art critics will scoff at inexperienced amateurs
or public commentary. Bite-sized feel good scientific content fashioned for
larger audiences can come across more concrete than it should - you're right
on that. If it comes at the expense of a more "scientifically minded" public,
i'm fine with that. We're better off in the world of TED than we were before
it.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Are we really? The social patterning is the religious revival meeting, and
that's precisely the _wrong way_ to frame science if you want to give outsider
a realistic impression of what it means and how it works.

Pop-sci has a terrible flattening effect. It gives the public the mistaken
impression that their opinion is worth as much as a professional's, because
it's not so hard really after you've read about it in a cheap paperback.

It's the mindset of "evolution of just a theory" and "climate change
scientists are only in it for the money" and "my opinion of string theory is
just as valid as that of a PhD working at the Perimeter Institute of Princeton
- and what is a perimeter anyway?"

I'm not suggesting we should return to the happy era of pipe-smoking public
science paternalism of the 40s and 50s.

But the alternative meme - that's it's all just a point of view - is just as
destructive and stupid.

Gladwell, Godin, TED, and the rest are enablers of that mindset, whether or
not they agree with it personally.

------
jcromartie
This sounds just like an article I read a few days ago:

[http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/04/29/beware-the-too-
comp...](http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/04/29/beware-the-too-compelling-
narrative/)

------
JacobAldridge
The greatest enduring benefit of having studied and trained as a journalist is
the experience gained as 'the gatekeeper' of information, and therefore the
ability to interpret news more thoroughly. That, and the fact most news is
depressing garbage as nutritional for your brain as sweetener is for your gut,
is why I only skim the news these days.

Most journalists / writers are decent people aiming to communicate as much as
they can, as clearly as they can, with overly tight time-frames and (less so
online) limited news-holes.

They won't write "may be X" if they can write "is X" \- therefore, "may be"
(and related modifiers like could, perhaps, up to, close to etc) mean "not
definitely" and are usually safe to ignore.

They won't paraphrase someone if they have a direct quote just as specific -
therefore, any general comments have been created to attempt to fit what
someone said into the narrative angle of the piece. They may be inaccurate
(and few things frustrate me more than the outragists of the world turning a
newspaper story into somebody's direct quotes).

If the headline / lede seems outrageously unfair and Occams Razor suggests
there must be more to the story, then there will usually be additional
information in paragraph 5 that makes the story less outrageous and more
normal. Genuinely shocking stories (whistle-blowing, massacres, genocide)
don't need to lead with the outrage. Genuine stories also stick around for
days with new information or different angles - therefore it's safe to
conclude outrageous headlines are burying the mundane facts and can be
ignored, until they show up many days in a row.

Obviously these are generalizations, they don't account for truly terrible
writing like the _Daily Mail_ , gossip magazines, and current affairs
television, and anyone who reads enough news with a critical eye probably
comes to the same conclusions (ie, nothing special about me). What this
awareness gives you of course is the ability to unwind a complex narrative out
from a simple story.

So don't "Beware Simple Stories" \- rather, develop your own expertise in
interpreting them.

------
billyhoffman
> We can measure the rate of learning. Google scholar counts the number of
> times a paper is cited by other papers. I believe that well-informed
> scholars who cite the original paper ought to cite the subsequent papers.

Possibly related, but Google and the very concept of PageRank was born out of
Page and Brin's work on Backrub, which attempted to surface the
importance/relevance of an academic paper based on which other papers cited
it.

------
yattahri
TED sells tickets. Malcolm Gladwell sells books and appearances. They won't do
that as well as they do now if they didn't embellish their stories with facts
and points that the general masses relate to. On the bright side - Anything
these people do to shift the attention of this generation from cars, hoes and
money is a step closer to a somewhat brighter future for all of us.

~~~
musgravepeter
At some level TED etc. are just providing what the market (us) wants.

Given a choice between thinking hard and an easy answer we tend to prefer the
later until it no longer meets our needs or becomes clearly wrong.

------
stinkytaco
I get the criticism because I imagine most of us work in a field other people
do not understand the complexity of and would like to over simplify. However,
I would rather they have a cursory understanding of what I do, what problems I
am trying to solve and the challenges I face than have none. I feel the same
about many areas. I think that environmental change is a problem, but I can do
little to actually solve the problem other than attempt to understand it and
influence policy with my votes or money. I am interested in various scientific
fields, but hardly an expert, so I follow them at a surface level. It's not
perfect, but I think it's better than nothing.

~~~
wellpast
OP isn't arguing for "nothing". She is just giving fair warning.

~~~
stinkytaco
Nor was I saying that "nothing" was the argument. I am simply pointing out
that TED, science journalism and "storytelling" is generally a societal good,
despite their flaws. Should we approach all things critically? Of course. I'm
not a big Gladwell fan myself and I can't stomach Godin on a good day, but my
view of the TED culture is much more positive for the reasons I outlined
above.

------
pdonis
As the saying goes, all complex questions have simple, easy to understand
wrong answers.

------
gooseus
Lots of good points that I definitely agree with.

> They are wrapped with a crudely drawn distribution curve on the cover and
> published to a tourism market...

This reminds me of the lessons of Nassim Taleb (The Black Swan/Antifragile)
who makes similar points about naive interpretations of statistics and their
naive applications to most areas involving decision making.

I did really enjoy Blink though... I'm ashamed to say that I've barely started
Thinking Fast and Slow (Kahneman's more scientific take on the same stuff)
still.

------
squozzer
What the author seems to miss is that before he could describe decay pathways
he had to learn what an isotope was. We shouldn't mistake the simplestory-
tellers for tenured scholars - their job is not to render dissertation. It is
to provide insight appropriate to the audience's level of understanding.

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ceequof
Wow, that is some huge text. Computed font-size 31px.

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zdw
I would put a concise, simple point here summarizing the article, but...

