You would think that someone such as myself, someone who had recently finished a Steven Pinker book on critical thinking and then boasted that he already knew most of what it had to say, would be a pretty switched-on type of guy; the sort of guy who would leave all others in his wake, choking on the dust kicked up by his success. But I’m not. I have a stupid brain that does lots of stupid things. For example, only the other day I was browsing my bookcase (which veritably heaves with switched-on guy reading material) and I came across a book titled ‘The Organised Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload‘. The irony, however, is that I had completely forgotten that I had bought such a book. And so there it was, still untouched and still unread months later. A book that was supposed to save me from information overload had simply contributed to the problem. And my stupid brain had allowed it.

There are a number of possible lessons to be learnt here, one of which is to buy fewer books. But the main one is that knowing everything there is to know about critical thinking obviously wouldn’t be enough to enable me to cope when trying to attend to too much stuff. Attention, it seems, is a finite resource. Eager to pursue this idea, I trawled the internet and quickly came across the following article on The Conversation website:

When critical thinking isn’t enough: to beat information overload, we need to learn ‘critical ignoring’

My stupid brain was intrigued.

It’s irony all the way down

Now, I may not know much about the art of critical ignorance, but I do know enough to understand that being familiar with an author must give some clues as to whether an article is worth ignoring or not. So when I saw that one of the authors was the climate sceptics’ very own guardian angel, Stephan Lewandowsky, my stupid brain’s inquisitiveness quickly changed direction. At that point, I knew that my search for wisdom had reached a dead end, and yet there was still some prospect of uncovering the perniciousness that often hides within the shadows of pseudoscience. That promise proved enough to keep me reading. At the very least, there was still the possibility that the article could unpick the irony of having a website called The Conversation that fanfares the virtues of ignoring people. This was still a rabbit hole worth investigating.

Or so it seemed. The reality is that Lewandowsky and his pals had nothing of any great originality to say. It was all very familiar stuff, so stop me if you have heard it before.

Apparently, the internet is a great source of information but there are also a lot of bad guys out there who are seeking to misinform you and benefit from gaining your attention, and so it is important that you learn to discriminate between the trustworthy and the wicked. One way would be to read carefully through what they say and employ your critical thinking to work out for yourself whether what they are saying is likely to be truthful and useful. However, Lewandowsky et al warn that this is already too late. You just won’t have the time or the attention span to implement such a strategy and, besides which, you will have already fallen into the evil trap:

“Past studies show that, when deciding whether a source should be trusted, students (as well as university professors) do what years of school has taught them to do – they read closely and carefully. Attention merchants as well as merchants of doubt are jubilant.”

And if you were to rely upon critical thinking, can you trust yourself to get it right?

“Online, looks can be deceiving. Unless one has extensive background knowledge it is often very difficult to figure out that a site, filled with the trappings of serious research, peddles falsehoods about climate change or vaccinations or any variety of historical topics, such as the Holocaust.”

The solution to this problem, says Lewandowsky and his self-appointed myth-busting crew, is to know in advance not to bother. And the way you do this, apparently, is to use the internet to deal with the internet. Put simply, ask the internet whether or not this is a bad guy, and if it says he or she is one of the baddies, then ‘critically ignore’ them and just move on. The Lew crew call this ‘lateral reading’, so eat your heart out de Bono.

The reality, of course, is that there is nothing clever or original about any of this; certainly, there’s not enough originality or value to justify coining a term for it. It’s just what you tell people to do when there is an orthodox view to peddle and you don’t want anyone to challenge it. As such, it is actually a very old and dangerous idea.

In fact, Lewandowsky’s concerns go as far back as the invention of the written word, some five thousand years ago. Thamus, the king of ancient Egypt, argued that the written word would fill the heads of the Egyptian people with fake knowledge. Plato, an orator by trade, was none too keen either. He wondered how anyone could trust the written word when the author wasn’t on hand to answer questions. The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger bemoaned the output of the book-writing attention merchants, claiming that ‘the abundance of books was a distraction’. He recommended focussing only upon a small number of good books, though he didn’t have the internet to hand to advise him which of them these might be. He probably just had his own works in mind.

So I’m sorry, Stephan, but you are five thousand years too late. Worse still, it is five thousand years during which the evidence for the perils of ‘critical ignoring’ has been stacking up. Yes, of course there is a problem with information overload and the reliance one can place upon one’s own evaluation. But an appeal to authority as a means of discrimination (even the collective authority offered by the supposedly respectable branch of the internet) can only serve to suppress valuable heterodox views along with the noise. It will be the Matthew Effect writ large.

Whilst Lewandowsky maintains that critical thinking is still important, I think you will find that, through the magic of ‘lateral reading’, the internet can tell you that the failure to think critically is somehow only to be found in the folk who Lewandowsky despises. The irony is that sites like Cliscep are devoted to the promotion of critical thinking but will find themselves increasingly marginalised by techniques of censorship that the Lewandowskys of this world are drooling over.

That’s the third irony I have mentioned so far. In fact, it is irony all the way down. Lewandowsky claims to hold critical thinking in high esteem and yet he proposes a solution to the information overload problem that renders critical thinking redundant. If you have selected your reading material based upon the recommendations of an authority, you can relax and take it all in uncritically, feeling confident that you are missing nothing important. Calling this ‘critical ignoring’ doesn’t make it an extension of critical thinking.

Don’t turn your back on your stupid brain

My stupid brain will continue to do stupid things, but at least I am dedicated to using it rather than outsourcing all my judgement to others. I’m not that stupid that I will insist on sticking to my guns when just about everyone who should know better says I am wrong. But, there again, I am well aware that there are processes that are perfectly capable of generating a consensus that doesn’t actually stand up to critical evaluation. It’s a very odd phenomenon, I’ll grant you, and one which I find fascinating.

I’d love to spend a lot more time with you, discussing the perils of worshiping the gods of authoritative wisdom and picking at the thin veneer of science that Lewandowsky likes to apply to his otherwise naked prejudices. But you must forgive me now, because I have a book that still needs reading, and I note on the back that it must have cost me £9.99.

That is something that I cannot critically ignore.

23 Comments

  1. John,

    I see that they’re doing it again:

    “…Unless one has extensive background knowledge it is often very difficult to figure out that a site, filled with the trappings of serious research, peddles falsehoods about climate change or vaccinations or any variety of historical topics, such as the Holocaust.”

    Yes, anyone who questions the validity of policy responses to the supposed climate crisis, or questions the wisdom of the totality of the response to the covid pandemic must be the sort of person who would be a Holocaust denier. Stands to reason, doesn’t it?

    Like

  2. Mark,

    I’m afraid it is standard fayre nowadays. I just think it is a bit rich that someone who makes such a lame-assed connection should be lecturing anyone on the subject of critical thinking. As I say, it just seems to be irony all the way down.

    Like

  3. My eye was also drawn to the climate denier – holocaust denier comparison.

    This does not work at any level, as far as I can see. The first and most obvious point is that one is a historical fact, while the other is a prediction of something that will supposedly happen some day. The evidential base for each proposition is by nature orders of magnitude different. It is like going back to 1923 and comparing those who denied the Great War with holocaust deniers.

    The second point is that if you only read from an “approved” reading list, you could be induced to believe that the holocaust was a hoax. It only depends on who is curating the list. But if you read both sides, you would easily discover that the evidence for the holocaust is compelling and universal, and that its deniers are relying on you listening to them and them alone. They are relying on you ignoring facts and data. Or rather, on never seeing such facts and data, because someone you trust has labelled their purveyors as masters of disinformation.

    I am compelled to believe in the value of critical thinking, because nothing else makes sense to me. It would only make sense to censor the opposing case if your own was appallingly weak. I am left with the thought that those who seek to do so seek to win the argument, not uncover the facts.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Jit,

    I think the comparison made by Lewandowsky is simply a rhetorical ploy that isn’t really intended for sensible analysis. After all, what exactly is the climate change denier supposed to be denying? There are many nuances and complexities at issue, and not everyone labelled as a denier necessarily agrees with the next guy. But that doesn’t enter into the calculation of those such as Lewandowsky. If you were to try to encourage a more sophisticated debate he would just critically ignore you. He’s just a propagandist masquerading as a critical thinker, and the first thing a propagandist will do is seek to debase the target group.

    Like

  5. Just to illustrate how reliable my stupid brain is, I have only just now picked up on a howler of a typo in my article: “aincent Egypt”!

    What the hell was I thinking? I have no excuses, but at least I have corrected it now.

    Like

  6. Here is someone, at least, who hasn’t given up on critical thinking.

    Of course, what I should have done, according to Lewandowsky, is look elsewhere on the internet and discover why no one should ever listen to anyone who would appear on Fox News.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. If you were going to short-cut critical thinking, there are far better rubrics than those suggested by Lewandowsky.

    Motivated reasoning — is the person sticking their neck out to say something, or earning good money by saying it? The first group are rather more likely to be at least trying to tell the truth.

    Revealed preference — do they preach about how good state schools are, then send their children to private ones?

    Are they prone to other conspirational/oddball thinking — do they think there is a world-wide network, secretly funded, that are opposing them?

    Are they prepared to deny basic facts/science — do they somehow believe that children don’t inherit intelligence from their parents to any degree at all? (A bugbear of mine when reading about education.)

    Moving the goalposts — that wasn’t true Communism.

    Do they only protest at the West doing something, not the non-West

    They’re only rubrics, but on all these things the global warming alarmists don’t do very well.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. I know that Russell Brand isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but he seems to be doing a fine job here making the point made in my article:

    Of course, you could always take the advice of Lewandowsky and do some ‘lateral reading’ before viewing the above. For example, take the Guardian:

    https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/mar/14/russell-brands-descent-into-conspiracy-politics

    There you are reliably informed that he has ‘descended’ into being a right-wing conspiracy theorist and, therefore, what he says should be ‘critically ignored’ – particularly that bit about the importance of free speech and courageous journalism.

    Liked by 2 people

  10. That is surprisingly impressive from Brand, thanks John. There is an even more striking example of ‘critical ignoring’ underway in the US than the Twitter Files malarkey, I feel. Will try and explain a little today or over the weekend.

    Like

  12. John: The competition that YouTube has for video streaming is a crucial impediment to the ‘critical ignoring backed by government’ brigade as revealed by the Twitter Files. It’s not just about Rumble and that makes the situation even better. I may in a moment even read the BBC on the subject, bless Auntie’s little cotton socks (but thanks). I will in due course comment on this in Good Cheer and give what are, to me, some striking examples.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. I also saw the headline, in the early hours of this morning, on the front page of the BBC News app, on my iPhone. And ignored it.

    The thing is, I don’t feel able to ignore the BBC entirely. Their long report on Monday revealing the sixth member of the Stephen Lawrence murder gang in Eltham in 1993, and how the police let him off the hook, through incompetence or (more likely) corruption, was very good. I needed the front page to be made aware of that, which I was very early.

    This though is like a knife through the heart, even without reading it, because of what’s gone before.

    I didn’t expect to write this much about it, having avoided reading it. In fact a little less than nothing.

    Liked by 2 people

  16. Most of BBC Verify’s judgements are tagged with ‘Fake News’. Cranky Uncle Lew’s chum Sander van der Linden, a world expert on misinformation, might not approve. In 2020, he co-wrote a paper about something that he and his colleagues called the ‘fake news effect’:

    the tendency for partisans to use the term ‘fake news’ to discount and discredit ideologically uncongenial media sources’.

    So he seems to think that ‘fake news’ is an ideological slur.

    Or perhaps he would approve. He uses the term himself a helluva lot. For example, a year later he co-wrote a paper with Cranky Uncle Lew called ‘Countering Misinformation and Fake News Through Inoculation and Prebunking’.*

    Or perhaps he wouldn’t. Another of his colleagues, Andy Norman, recently wrote the following in a review of a review of van der Linden’s latest book**:

    Ironically, the title of Williams’s review—“The Fake News About Fake News”—uses a manipulation technique that van der Linden treats at length in Foolproof. He calls it the “You are fake news effect.” Here’s the idea: Scholars and responsible fact-checkers tend to employ careful analysis, judicious reasoning, and neutral language to call out mistakes, as these are signals of objectivity. By contrast, “You are fake news!” has become a cheap way for bad actors to dismiss inconvenient points of view. Williams should know better: Serious scholars shouldn’t stoop to calling one another—or any serious scholarly work—”fake news.”

    Although of course BBC Verify’s targets are seldom (ever?) ‘serious scholars’, so perhaps van der Linden would approve – and my suggestion that he wouldn’t is fake news and I’m a bad actor.

    On the other hand… [contd. p94]

    ===
    *Its abstract’s first sentence said that ‘fake news’ was another way of saying ‘misinformation’. Its last treated ‘misinformation’ and ‘fake news’ as different things. Cognitive immunology is a murky world full of definitional tautologies and other confusions.

    **Norman’s review of the review strikes me as a bit tribal – cultish, even. It reminds me of stuff I used to read at SkS. The review itself is more thoughtful and intelligent:

    https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-fake-news-about-fake-news/

    I haven’t read van der Linden’s book.

    Liked by 2 people

  17. Richard,

    The thing is that the BBC still has vestiges of its previous quality. Occasionally (increasingly infrequently) it is still capable of excellent journalism. But increasingly it isn’t. As for climate change, it’s starting to feel as though agreeing to mention it on air is a prerequisite to being allowed to make a programme or being granted an interview. I was rather enjoying the interview on PM this evening with the Canadian Defence Minister (I think), as it was interesting and different to the usual fare, then at the end – as if on cue, she started talking about climate change for no apparent reason.

    Liked by 2 people

  18. I had a look at the front page of the BBC News app, as above, just now, and saw the headline/link When Anita Anand met the other Anita Anand. As it sounded fun (and for other reasons I’ll come to) I clicked, looked and listened to the familiar BBC Anand joking with her Canadian Defence Minister counterpart. All those past confusions hehe. Obviously a prelude to the thing Mark had heard. Ok, snap.

    But also double snap. Because my history lecturer yesterday at Bristol Library (who I only met by another strange chance) recommended, on my hijacking his Q&A, two avenues to look into on the roots of UK abolitionism, from the Civil War in the 1640s. One was a book on the toppling of statues in history, which I’ve bought on Kindle today, as it was so cheap, and the other the Empire podcast with Anita Anand and a history buff. Which I’d already decided was a very good steer too.

    And I really like Anand, due to her work with Andrew Neil in the past especially. Good old BBC. Except for the climate bit. About as humane and intelligible as the UK consensus on the slave trade 1650 – 1800. Let’s hope this one doesn’t take so long to die.

    Like

  19. Richard, I like Anita Anand too. I felt that with her presenting it, PM was less likely than usual to be agenda -driven than usual. Then they had to spoil it by talking about climate change (again).

    The extent to which we are overwhelmed by this propaganda reminds me uncomfortably of the WMD propaganda over Iraq. I fear there are parallels.

    Like

  20. At long last, some appreciation of the valuable elements within the BBC. Yes I agree there is much to criticise, especially about its overwhelming bias upon all matters climatic and related. But it is possible to ignore them and await the gems that the BBC qstill exhibits especially in its radio programmes.

    I have often wondered why I differ from most of you lot regarding the BBC. One possibility I have come up with is that it is related to having worked cheek by jowl with climateers for twenty years at UEA. I learned to get along with people whose views on climate I commonly despised, but with whom I had to work with and, in some cases, came to appreciate their other qualities.

    Like

  21. I’m afraid the rot at the BBC goes much deeper than their climate change propaganda. I will accept that the corporation retains the considerable vestiges of top quality reporting and programming for which it was hitherto rightly admired and famed for, but the Rubicon was crossed quite some time ago and these Trojan Horse remnants of the past are not sufficient to argue for the continuation of the BBC as Britain’s ‘independent’ publicly funded broadcaster. Doug Brodie alerted me to this excellent series of articles from Iain Davis:

    https://iaindavis.substack.com/p/deconstructing-marianna-in-conspiracyland-f99

    Like

  22. Jaime – thanks for that IAIN DAVIS link above – good overview on BBC “Marianna in Conspiracyland”

    Liked by 1 person

  23. I haven’t finished listening to the Marianna in Conspiracyland podcasts yet but so far they’re pretty good, as podcasts go. No intrusive background music or sound effects, no manipulative over-dramatizations and no attempts to put the narrator centre-stage. (Those are the things I hate most about podcasts – bejesus will you please stop talking about yourself and just get on with the effing story!)

    The only fault I’ve spotted so far – and it’s perhaps a big one – is that Spring hasn’t yet acknowledged that NarniansTotnes’s leftie hippies have long embraced conspiracy theories, so conspiracy theories haven’t suddenly arrived in the town because of a surge to the far-right.

    Like

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.