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Isn’t this tautologically true when consensus views are assumed correct? (then the consensus view will be judged as appropriately confident while the non-consen

Isn’t this tautologically true when consensus views are assumed correct? (then the consensus view will be judged as appropriately confident while the non-consensus views will be judged as inappropriately confident) It’s also interesting to consider the human psychological factor that the stronger the consensus, the more effort it takes to hold a dissonant view — and plausibly one must project greater confidence in order to hold steadfast. This will only amplify, the more one is hounded with “consensus”. Consensus views might well be right! But is this study telling us anything new/interesting, beyond regurgitating common sense with a veneer of scientism?

mlyle 4y ago
> Isn’t this tautologically true when consensus views are assumed correct? I worried that this study might be circular reasoning in that way. Instead they quizzed knowledge on related fields but not directly connected to the disputed idea. The people involved bet higher amounts on their ability to score well on objective measures of related sciences, but scored worse.
- jtc331 4y ago
  Isn’t that still circular though? Knowledge of the mainstream research isn’t the same as “knowledge of what’s correct”; the person who holds the non-consensus view may have equal or higher levels of knowledge about the path that got them to non-consensus. At some level you might reasonably expect what you described to be tautological: the person holding the mainstream view knows more about they things surrounding that view. But do they know the alternatives? It’d be interest to compare the knowledge level the person holding the consensus view has about the non-consensus view to vice versa.
  - ssivark 4y ago
    > It’d be interest to compare the knowledge level the person holding the consensus view has about the non-consensus view to vice versa. That's a great question -- harking back to the idea that for the best incarnation of debate one should be able to argue one's opponent's case to their satisfaction, and then make one's own counter. The unfortunate problem is that it's often far easier to cook up BS than to bust it, so the anticipated effort tilts the scales massively. But in cases where there are specific/highlighted competing alternatives, it would be very interesting to study this.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > Isn’t that still circular though? Knowledge of the mainstream research isn’t the same as “knowledge of what’s correct”; the person who holds the non-consensus view may have equal or higher levels of knowledge about the path that got them to non-consensus. No, because the things they're asking about are middle school level science stuff. The list of questions are in the supplemental PDF, or in my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32379920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32379920
mike_hearn 4y ago
They divide questions into "objective" and "subjective" to solve this. They are testing "objective knowledge" using simple science quizzes with questions that are indeed pretty much factual and not under any dispute. I downloaded the questions to check that. For example: "All radioactivity is man-made: true/false", "Venus is the closest planet to the sun" etc. They call this objective knowledge and it seems mostly sound. There was only one question I noticed where they appear to be asking for agreement with an (incorrect) consensus. They included in their "objective knowledge": COVID-19 is transmitted mainly via small respiratory droplets through sneezing, coughing, or when people interact in close proximity. True But this isn't right (in my opinion). Although they made the question ambiguous by adding the word "mainly", the data seems inconsistent with SARS-CoV-2 mostly spreading this way, and over time opinion shifted towards a much greater emphasis on aerosols that may be created even by people who are apparently asymptomatic. Nor was this unknowable at the time: SARS-1 apparently could spread through drainpipes in apartment blocks, so if SARS-2 is indeed similar to SARS-1 it makes sense it could spread in similar ways. At any rate there are much bigger problems with the study than how they determine people's levels of scientific knowledge. The whole study is based on the idea that a bunch of highly controversial ideas are in reality "consensus", e.g. they consider that masks being highly effective is a consensus. But it certainly wasn't just before COVID, the consensus was the exact opposite. What is the point of even caring about a consensus of people who will change that consensus overnight without any new research findings?

mlyle 4y ago

> Isn’t this tautologically true when consensus views are assumed correct? I worried that this study might be circular reasoning in that way. Instead they quizzed knowledge on related fields but not directly connected to the disputed idea. The people involved bet higher amounts on their ability to score well on objective measures of related sciences, but scored worse.

jtc331 4y ago
Isn’t that still circular though? Knowledge of the mainstream research isn’t the same as “knowledge of what’s correct”; the person who holds the non-consensus view may have equal or higher levels of knowledge about the path that got them to non-consensus. At some level you might reasonably expect what you described to be tautological: the person holding the mainstream view knows more about they things surrounding that view. But do they know the alternatives? It’d be interest to compare the knowledge level the person holding the consensus view has about the non-consensus view to vice versa.
- ssivark 4y ago
  > It’d be interest to compare the knowledge level the person holding the consensus view has about the non-consensus view to vice versa. That's a great question -- harking back to the idea that for the best incarnation of debate one should be able to argue one's opponent's case to their satisfaction, and then make one's own counter. The unfortunate problem is that it's often far easier to cook up BS than to bust it, so the anticipated effort tilts the scales massively. But in cases where there are specific/highlighted competing alternatives, it would be very interesting to study this.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > Isn’t that still circular though? Knowledge of the mainstream research isn’t the same as “knowledge of what’s correct”; the person who holds the non-consensus view may have equal or higher levels of knowledge about the path that got them to non-consensus. No, because the things they're asking about are middle school level science stuff. The list of questions are in the supplemental PDF, or in my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32379920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32379920

mike_hearn 4y ago

They divide questions into "objective" and "subjective" to solve this. They are testing "objective knowledge" using simple science quizzes with questions that are indeed pretty much factual and not under any dispute. I downloaded the questions to check that. For example: "All radioactivity is man-made: true/false", "Venus is the closest planet to the sun" etc. They call this objective knowledge and it seems mostly sound. There was only one question I noticed where they appear to be asking for agreement with an (incorrect) consensus. They included in their "objective knowledge": COVID-19 is transmitted mainly via small respiratory droplets through sneezing, coughing, or when people interact in close proximity. True But this isn't right (in my opinion). Although they made the question ambiguous by adding the word "mainly", the data seems inconsistent with SARS-CoV-2 mostly spreading this way, and over time opinion shifted towards a much greater emphasis on aerosols that may be created even by people who are apparently asymptomatic. Nor was this unknowable at the time: SARS-1 apparently could spread through drainpipes in apartment blocks, so if SARS-2 is indeed similar to SARS-1 it makes sense it could spread in similar ways. At any rate there are much bigger problems with the study than how they determine people's levels of scientific knowledge. The whole study is based on the idea that a bunch of highly controversial ideas are in reality "consensus", e.g. they consider that masks being highly effective is a consensus. But it certainly wasn't just before COVID, the consensus was the exact opposite. What is the point of even caring about a consensus of people who will change that consensus overnight without any new research findings?