The Humanist Part of the Techno Dissent Discussion

by Gary Berg-Cross

I do like the term and think of myself as a humanist -  secular humanist. And in the Washington Post recent series on Tech Doubters kicked off by Joel Achenbach's THE RESISTANCE. I see that there may be an opportunity to get the humanist position, even the progressive, nature centered and deliberately rational, progressive secular view into the conversation.  At least this can be in regard to the human-technical interaction in society.

The article kicks off the issues thus way identifying people uncomfortable with how the internet and associated technology is influencing modern life.

"They are the digital dissenters.

They see tech companies tracking our every move.

They want to go back to the basics – to a world where the interests of

humans come before robots, algorithms and the needs of Silicon Valley.

 Meet the people on “Team Human."n.” █ 

From a distance I don't much object to this stance.  I don't like the invasion of privacy with companies (or governments) tracking our behavior etc. And I share the view of human values being central.  It is just that I also appreciate science and technology and perhaps want more thought to go into its use. Some of the critics do too and Achenbach starts introducing them like this:

"Techno-skeptics, or whatever you want to call them — “humanists” may be the best term — sense that human needs are getting lost in the tech frenzy, that the priorities have been turned upside down. They sense that there’s too much focus on making sure that new innovations will be good for the machines.

'I’m on Team Human!' author Douglas Rushkoff will say at the conclusion of a talk."

Well again, I agree with part of these critiques including the judgment that parts of our digital age has nightmare elements run by digital "robber barons" who mine data our personal info for profit. So it is not paranoid, that one of the tech skeptics, political activist Astra Taylor keeps duct tape over the camera lens on her laptop computer. Someone might be listening.

There are many people who have this view:

"You could fill a college syllabus with books espousing some kind of technological resistance. Start the class with “You Are Not a Gadget” (Jaron Lanier), move on to “The Internet Is Not the Answer” (Andrew Keen), and then, to scare the students silly, “Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era” (James Barrat)."

Also cited is Pope Francis' recent encyclical “On Care for Our Common Home” which "contemplates the mixed blessings of technology." He acknowledges the marvels of modern technology such as the beauty of an aircraft or a skyscraper), but warns of potential dangers,unless technological development isn't been matched by "development in human values and conscience." There might be a spiritual ting to Francis' values though.

I might a bit more uncomfortable with the broad brush labeling of techno-skeptics as humanists. There are some qualifications to make along the way.  

I would agree with the point that humanism, and in particular a secular humanist position has potential here. There is something lost in blindly designing things for machine culture in an arms race, first to the market, winner take all style that we have. I would feel some affinity to both ‘believe’ in humanism and trust (well hope) in a fair view of technical innovation;which includes that humans find some meaning in through work (Jörns, 1997). As the article notes we currently have a problem here:

 “The economy accepts every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings."

Yes, and humanist values could be the basis of doing this in a human friendly way.  The humanist movement, has what Roy Speckhardt calls a forward-thinking outlook with an emphasis on critical thinking and self-reflection. It also has a naturalist outlook which wouldn't want an intrusion of spiritual values into this conversation. So that type of humanism is what we want now.  It is more sophisticated than a human vs. computer labeled wrestling match. Secularism, understood as the dominance of naturalistic and scientific thought over supernatural explanations of reality, was seen as the future for America and might be seen in light of techno skepticism a solution again. What come along with a "progressive secularism" view is a belief-stance that human beings are alone in the world and must act responsibly by forming their ethics solely from their human experience, human reason and science (source Is Reality Secular?: Testing the Assumptions of Four Global Worldviews.)

To me then is not an either machines/computers or us issue (human reason & science apply), although I can understand dissent in the face of an un-thought through tech "advance" imposed by a morals-free system.  Few of us want to be slippery sloped or bludgeoned into accepting an unacceptable future. The problem is as much a slow versus fast thinking for-profit style. In a deliberate manner we may be able to answer how humans and smart, communicating systems can usefully interact and profit all human life not just the masters.

It seems to me it also the values of a shallow capitalist culture (the robber baron image again) allowing tech use for company profit.  It is the old fire is good or bad depending on how you balance its use within a cultural system. We need reflection to do this.

Simple Help to Understand Difficult Issues and its Argumentation

Gary Berg-Cross

The recent arguments on this Blog about supporting language-based charter schools in DC raised some fundamental issues about argumentation and bias in my mind. It starts from the obvious observation that there are usual many sides to an issue like this. But our experiences, values and broad stances often frames what we consider good arguments. Facts are certainly important in an argument. So the fact that “there are Christian Arabs” is one of many facts that can be cited to support an argument. They may be used to support or oppose principles and thus provide a coherent argument. But since there may be so many relevant facts it is often hard to focus down to critical facts and arguments can quickly become so complex they are difficult to follow, especially when the various sides of an issues have a large history and many interacting factors. In addition to heaps of facts in an argument one may cite such things as:

· Principles (schools should serve broad student bodies)

· Hidden agenda and motivation (Christian evangelical kids learning Hebrew so that they can proselytize in Israel) Again facts may be used to expose or distract from agendas ,

· Ideology and values (English is our official language or Charter movement is said to have shifted into an effort to privatize education and attack teachers' unions,) but (we shouldn’t have publish money going into religious schools and “Two yet-to-be-opened Hebrew charter schools in New Jersey each received federal grants of $200,000”)

· Backers & group associations (Some Charter schools have ties to religious groups ), and a variety of other factors that go into human situations and our understanding of them.

· Uncomfortable trends (Religious Charter Schools are proliferating)

Some of these as well as supporting facts I may have only a small knowledge of for example who is in back of language-based charter schools. I may have a general sense of how is in back of charter schools and wonder if this is a camel’s nose under the tent strategy. I may connect this to larger, religious agendas such as abortion control or teaching creationism is schools that work tirelessly to nibble away at resistance to their broader agenda. In such grey areas I may be in conflict because I can see a goal that has potential good, but may afford and opportunity for some downside too. If I hear that New Gingrich favors Hebrew language charter schools for DC and these are getting funds from Sheldon Adelstein, who is know to fund Independent Jewish schools, I might worry that there is an agenda here, although it is a loose chain of reasoning.

How do we assess all these factors and role them into a judgment on issues that are complex like this and where only limited facts are know and the environment is not transparent enough to be sure? One may ask how humans reach a reasoned judgment when there are so many factors. Learning a language, for example, is good while supporting schools that are anti-union is bad. It’s all more than a direct calculating and adding up of all supporting and opposing factors in some type of vast numerical calculation. Critical thinking & reducing complexity by analysis that breaks things down a bit helps. I’ve done just a bit of this in my bullets. Using argument maps to explore what has been said can be useful. Argument maps allow us to clarify the thoughts and look at various parts of an argument. But it takes time and training so it is a selective improvement.

This is now well enough researched in Cognitive Psychology and Decision Science to offer some insights. But it itself is complex enough that only a gesture to the full story is attempted here.

So how do we reach judgment under such complex situation? Our mind often shortcuts the complexity. One factor are frames that influence what we believe are facts and have much to do with our arguments on complex issues helping us simplify them down to what seems like a coherent argument. But another is active filtering and biases. We choose to seek out and accept the information that fits our existing mental model or viewpoint, instead of all information available. And so yes this often involves biases in our reasoning process.

One big factor in such judgments is a confirmatory bias - a tendency for us to favor information that confirms our beliefs, hypotheses or even our identities. So if we already hold a belief that teaching Hebrew is good (proselytize in Israel or maybe the tourist trade is good for the Israeli state) you can you can find data to support this and even the general notion that learning any new language is good confirms your belief. In other words, our judgment may be biased by seeking information which confirms an existing viewpoint. This simplifies things. We don’t have to worry about competing ideas such as, “well learning a new language is good, but why learn Arabic and not Spanish (with a growing population) or Italian (a nice place to visit)?”

What about new data? Well frames and a confirmatory bias helps direct interpretation of new “facts. ” It can be as simple as ignoring or downplaying information that doesn’t fit our concepts. But it can be active as new information is reinterpreted to match expectations and preconceptions. In controlled studies even if two people observed the same events, their interpretation can be completely different and influenced by preconceptions (shades of ideological thinking!).

So how do we get beyond things like confirmatory biases to understand what going on? Well being aware of the bias is a start. Critical thinking and a skeptical attitude helps. No matter what side you are on there are some general ideas such sharing your arguments with other critical thinkers. Since we are weak in finding flaws in our own reasoning other people may see the biases and fallacies. It can be hard on the ego though. Exposing arguments on a Blog like this is a way to do that, but one has to be open to personal progress and not rigid.

As to methods 2400 years ago or so Socrates came up with a dialogue method to help us get unstuck from our pre-judgments. It takes extended discussion that is less of one advocate clashing with another like 2 lawyers representing clients. It is more like a cooperative search for the truth.

We also have the rational, empirical scientific method which values challenging but testable hypotheses, questions data and has a way of converging on hypothesis that are supported by validated facts through systematic observation. Being more like a scientist and less like a lawyer just sounds better to me.

Thoughtful and Shallow Skepticism

As a boy I was lucky to read the work of Martin Gardner, a brilliant polymath, who was also a hero to “skeptics and science-minded people worldwide”. My skepticism was greatly influenced Gardner’s 1952 book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (still in print) which was the classic, rational-empirical examination of pseudoscience and pseudoscientists. As Michael Shermer put it: "Modern skepticism has developed into a science-based movement, beginning with Martin Gardner's 1952 classic". It is worth noting that in 1976 Gardner became a founding fellow of CSICOP, now the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (SI), and was an original member of SI’s Editorial Board.

With Garner’s guidance as a base I am respectful of a thoughtful skepticism. But neither he or I view it as an absolute or something that protects us from false beliefs. Indeed increasingly I see Garnder’s disciplined, skeptical stance being replaced with a shallow version that is used to bash topics as diverse as Climate Change, Evolution (Teach the Debate) and Science itself. 

 Some of it is ideological in nature. So libertarians like Penn and Teller who are general skeptics apply shallow thinking to Climate Change. When Penn Jillette was asked whether he “still believed that man-made climate change is bunk, as he has said more than once, his basic answer was:

" I loathe everything about Al Gore, so since Gore has been crusading against climate change it must be garbage.” 

OK, so your loathing emotion means you don't have to examine data and rational arguments???

Both Penn and Teller are well-known libertarians, but also supporters of the libertarian Cato Institute, leaders in spreading doubt about global warming. It is humbling to see people considered both hard-nosed empiricists and skeptics giving way to ideo-emotions that encourage some pretty stupid stances. 
 

Another contributing reason, I suspect, for a shallower skepticism is a false idea of its role in Science. The basic scientific methodology requires any theory to be subject to refutation, and this creates a base skepticism for many people. People latch onto a nihilistic idea that everything should be refutable and people are being "scientific" when they take this stance even while ignoring the other aspects of a scientific stance (e.g. coherence, validation, etc.).

Dr. David Morrison (Senior Scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute) states it well when characterizing climate change deniers, “It is fine to be skeptical, but we need to be concerned when skepticism drifts into denial.” And such denial abounds in climate change despite a pretty prominent scientific consensus. This scientific consensus is combated by lots of misinformation/disinformation about climate change (published on the Internet), driven in part by eco-political and economic positions. 

I have a neighbor who sends me example of these things, perhaps in an effort to convert me. His self image seems to be of a powerful skeptic. But it usually takes me only Google minutes to find that the sources of his articles are people backed by groups and fronts for Exxon and allies. 

I have long wondered why he isn’t skeptical of such backings. When confronted, his “skeptical” response is a knee-jerk negativity - an appeal to the meme-idea that climate scientist receive money for their research and they are just milking the public for more support. He has a reflexive disbelief in the assertions made by climate scientists. He seems unaware of the role rationalism plays in Gardner’s skepticism based on a scientific view of the world. This is a rational skepticism that uses the tools of reason and critical thinking to follow the data wherever it leads. This thoughtful skepticism may start from a simple disbelief, but it qualifies and arms skepticism with an empirical stance; because assertions, no matter how commonsensical, require proof. Proof includes data that is rigorously investigated wherever it leads, which can be an increasingly messy picture for a while.

Clearly some topics like climate change are complicated and messy, but there is a broad consensus when one looks at the complete set. That is not to say that there won’t be surprises. Indeed what some future validated data supports may not be our original hunch, but something else entirely. It is just that these discoveries cannot be expected to follow a simple, ideological narrative. Simple, shallow skepticism’s does have this narrative appeal - it may be lulled into acceptance by being a good story. We often need a simple story that we communicate to others. This is a plus. We prefer stories with a connection to something familiar and comforting over a complex story even one that has a rational-empirical base. In climate change some simple but deceptive narratives include: ‘What we are seeing are “natural variations” caused primarily by variations in solar output’ or “The apparent increase in temperature is an artifact caused by the fact that much of the data are from cities, which are warmer than their surroundings”. Good stories, but not supported by (subsequent) analysis.

Stories that pass our skeptical filter may mature into climate hoax stories that provide a shallow skeptical identity that people happily try on and use happily. We saw this type of thing in the narrative that vaccines cause autism in children, something that seemed to have some data in back of it, but which turned out to be concocted. A publication earlier this month in the British Medical Journal accused Andrew Wakefield, the British researcher responsible for the controversial 1998 study linking MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccinations to autism, of falsifying data. The wheels of science may grind slowly but truth will out.

And of course from a secular perspective, we see simple, deceptive narratives in religious stories that provide comfort, structure, and cultural identity. Acceptance of these is a challenge for skeptics, but once accepted by the gullible they may offer fertile ground for the shallow forms of self protective skepticism. Often such religious stories intertwine as other shallow skeptical deniers support one another with a lacing of stories.

The simple doubts of confirmed curmudgeons and cynics can be a precious thing held firmly as part of their coping identity. It can be comforting. But a thoughtful skeptic can change his/her mind and not deny the preponderance of the evidence. Indeed there was an informal study done looking at sites of listed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Skeptics_and_skeptical_organizations to see if there were climate change deniers on them. Turns out nary a one. 

Thoughtful skeptics are not climate deniers for the most part.

For more on skepticism see http://www.skepticnorth.com/2010/09/what-is-skepticism-week-1-curmudgeon-cynic-skeptic/ and http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/skeptics-circle/