the ability to pass ideological Turing tests—to state opposing views as clearly and persuasively as their proponents—is a genuine symptom of objectivity and wisdom.
Caplan gives little in the way of argument in support of this claim, and I’m not at all sure that it’s true. “Genuine symptom of objectivity and wisdom”, really? My objections follow.
First, there’s only one way to be right but there are many ways to be wrong. So if you are right it is likely that you have only a broad survey-level view of the different varieties of wrongness. Take, for example, climate change. The scientific consensus view is narrow and everyone in the debate knows what it is. But as far as I know there are many different skeptical positions (there’s no such thing as the greenhouse effect; there may be a greenhouse effect but CO₂ is not a greenhouse gas; CO₂ may be a greenhouse gas but concentrations are not increasing; CO₂ concentrations may be increasing, but they are not anthropogenic; global temperatures are not rising; temperatures may be rising but not because of CO₂; temperatures may be rising but there is no need to do anything because the net result will be beneficial; climate change may be harmful but it’s too late to do anything about it; it may not be too late but there are still better things to spend money on). I think I know enough about each of these positions to be confident that it’s wrong but in order to impersonate one of these positions well enough to fool people I would have to know it inside out. Exactly which wrong assumptions and wrong authorities does each of these positions depend on?
Second, the criterion of being able to state views “as clearly and persuasively as their proponents” is not as neutral as it seems. If you’re right you may have been happy to rely on the facts to do your persuading for you. But if you’re wrong then you have probably needed to employ a lot of rhetoric, salesmanship, fallacies and argumentation. These techniques take skill and practice and aren’t easy to imitate. For example, there’s no way that I would be able to imitate the dense texture of sneering and insinuation in the rhetoric of someone like Moldbug.
Third, in the specific case under discussion here, Christianity has a number of cultural properties that make it hard to imitate. If you are Christian, then you probably know the Bible in detail, you are probably familiar with a range of theological and apologetic texts, and you are probably embedded in a subculture with its own rules, rituals, and mores. These kinds of details take a lot of work to imitate. But the typical atheist has probably never read The God Delusion or attended any kind of atheist event, so there’s nothing there that needs to be invented.
“If you are Christian, then you probably know the Bible in detail, you are probably familiar with a range of theological and apologetic texts”
I’ll admit I don’t have any statistics here, but from what I’ve seen heard, both first-hand and second-hand, Christians tend to be quite poor on average at knowing the Bible. I’ve never heard any evidence suggesting the average Christian has a detailed knowledge of the contents of the Bible, even if the kind of Christians who like to argue Christianity are more informed than most. (Similarly, argumentative atheists tend to have a better knowledge of the atheistic arguments than the average atheist.)
But it’s exactly the type that likes to argue religion that participates in such a test. The test is comparing argumentative atheists to argumentative theists. Non-argumentative atheist and non-argumentative atheists are simply not involved. It is hard to test what non-argumentative folk believe, simply by the fact that they are not argumentative, and thus very unlikely to look at such tests.
I find it very plausible that Christians are better able to pretend to be atheists than vice versa.
I instantly did a double-take at this statement. It depends a lot on context.
I’d find it likely that the Christian readers of Patheos blogs are better at the Ideological Turing Test than the atheist readers of Patheos blogs. However, I’d find it incredibly unlikely if the samples were drawn from, say, all American Christians and all American atheists. (The typical Christian in America has listened to fewer atheists about atheism than vice versa.)
(The typical Christian in America has listened to fewer atheists about atheism than vice versa.)
Sure — if only for the same reason that the typical left-handed tennis player has played with more right-handed tennis players than vice versa. There are a lot more Christians!
I find it very plausible that [Blues] are better able to pretend to be [Greens] than vice versa. But what follows from that?
That Blues understand Green arguments but aren’t persuaded by them (presumably because they have counterarguments), whereas Greens don’t understand Blue arguments and this makes it unlikely they have counterarguments.
Now let’s look at your three objections, near as I can tell your first objection amounts to “sometimes the people defending the incorrect position are heterogeneous, this gives them a large advantage in the test”, and your third objection amounts to “sometimes the people defending the incorrect position are homogeneous, this gives them a large advantage in the test”.
Now let’s look at you second objection: much as it may seem that way your opponents are not evil mutants whose position has no logic to it whatsoever, most position actually held by humans, especially intelligent humans have a certain logic to them. (And if you’re opponents’ position really has no logic to it beyond saying anything plausible sounding that backs up their conclusion, that’s very easy to imitate). Thus, the two positions have different logic to them and it will be hard for a person only familiar with one of those logics to imitate the other. On the other hand, if someone is familiar with the logic of both positions A and B, the fact that he nevertheless holds position A is evidence that A is in fact correct.
Blues understand Green arguments but aren’t persuaded by them (presumably because they have counterarguments), whereas Greens don’t understand Blue arguments and this makes it unlikely they have counterarguments.
This is a restatement of the hypothesis under discussion. (That inability to imitate convincingly is caused by lack of understanding.)
your third objection amounts to “sometimes the people defending the incorrect position are homogeneous, this gives them a large advantage in the test”.
You’ve failed to imitate my position. My third objection is about irrelevant detail, not homogeneity. (Perhaps you can suggest a better way I could have put it?)
your opponents’ position really has no logic to it beyond saying anything plausible-sounding that backs up their conclusion
Again, you’ve failed to imitate my position. For concreteness, let’s take Christopher Monckton as an example. It’s not that I think he’s saying “anything plausible-sounding”. His arguments have a logical structure which is imitable but they are embedded in a rhetorical structure that I would find very hard to imitate convincingly due to lack of practice. (I guess you could characterize this as a form of irrelevant detail and merge it with my objection 3 but I think these two sources of irrelevant detail are sufficiently different in origin and aim to be worth separating.)
His arguments have a logical structure which is imitable but they are embedded in a rhetorical structure that I would find very hard to imitate convincingly due to lack of practice.
I’m not sure where you’re drawing the line between logical and rhetorical structure. The most obvious rhetorical structure is that he acts like he alieves his position in addition to believing it.
I find it very plausible that Christians are better able to pretend to be atheists than vice versa.
On the other hand, any Christian who pretends to be an atheist better than an atheist isn’t a very good Christian. By doing so they are violating the teachings of their God.
I find it very plausible that Christians are better able to pretend to be atheists than vice versa. But what follows from that?
Caplan claimed in his original piece:
Caplan gives little in the way of argument in support of this claim, and I’m not at all sure that it’s true. “Genuine symptom of objectivity and wisdom”, really? My objections follow.
First, there’s only one way to be right but there are many ways to be wrong. So if you are right it is likely that you have only a broad survey-level view of the different varieties of wrongness. Take, for example, climate change. The scientific consensus view is narrow and everyone in the debate knows what it is. But as far as I know there are many different skeptical positions (there’s no such thing as the greenhouse effect; there may be a greenhouse effect but CO₂ is not a greenhouse gas; CO₂ may be a greenhouse gas but concentrations are not increasing; CO₂ concentrations may be increasing, but they are not anthropogenic; global temperatures are not rising; temperatures may be rising but not because of CO₂; temperatures may be rising but there is no need to do anything because the net result will be beneficial; climate change may be harmful but it’s too late to do anything about it; it may not be too late but there are still better things to spend money on). I think I know enough about each of these positions to be confident that it’s wrong but in order to impersonate one of these positions well enough to fool people I would have to know it inside out. Exactly which wrong assumptions and wrong authorities does each of these positions depend on?
Second, the criterion of being able to state views “as clearly and persuasively as their proponents” is not as neutral as it seems. If you’re right you may have been happy to rely on the facts to do your persuading for you. But if you’re wrong then you have probably needed to employ a lot of rhetoric, salesmanship, fallacies and argumentation. These techniques take skill and practice and aren’t easy to imitate. For example, there’s no way that I would be able to imitate the dense texture of sneering and insinuation in the rhetoric of someone like Moldbug.
Third, in the specific case under discussion here, Christianity has a number of cultural properties that make it hard to imitate. If you are Christian, then you probably know the Bible in detail, you are probably familiar with a range of theological and apologetic texts, and you are probably embedded in a subculture with its own rules, rituals, and mores. These kinds of details take a lot of work to imitate. But the typical atheist has probably never read The God Delusion or attended any kind of atheist event, so there’s nothing there that needs to be invented.
“If you are Christian, then you probably know the Bible in detail, you are probably familiar with a range of theological and apologetic texts”
I’ll admit I don’t have any statistics here, but from what I’ve seen heard, both first-hand and second-hand, Christians tend to be quite poor on average at knowing the Bible. I’ve never heard any evidence suggesting the average Christian has a detailed knowledge of the contents of the Bible, even if the kind of Christians who like to argue Christianity are more informed than most. (Similarly, argumentative atheists tend to have a better knowledge of the atheistic arguments than the average atheist.)
But it’s exactly the type that likes to argue religion that participates in such a test. The test is comparing argumentative atheists to argumentative theists. Non-argumentative atheist and non-argumentative atheists are simply not involved. It is hard to test what non-argumentative folk believe, simply by the fact that they are not argumentative, and thus very unlikely to look at such tests.
I instantly did a double-take at this statement. It depends a lot on context.
I’d find it likely that the Christian readers of Patheos blogs are better at the Ideological Turing Test than the atheist readers of Patheos blogs. However, I’d find it incredibly unlikely if the samples were drawn from, say, all American Christians and all American atheists. (The typical Christian in America has listened to fewer atheists about atheism than vice versa.)
Sure — if only for the same reason that the typical left-handed tennis player has played with more right-handed tennis players than vice versa. There are a lot more Christians!
Yes, that’s all I was saying.
That Blues understand Green arguments but aren’t persuaded by them (presumably because they have counterarguments), whereas Greens don’t understand Blue arguments and this makes it unlikely they have counterarguments.
Now let’s look at your three objections, near as I can tell your first objection amounts to “sometimes the people defending the incorrect position are heterogeneous, this gives them a large advantage in the test”, and your third objection amounts to “sometimes the people defending the incorrect position are homogeneous, this gives them a large advantage in the test”.
Now let’s look at you second objection: much as it may seem that way your opponents are not evil mutants whose position has no logic to it whatsoever, most position actually held by humans, especially intelligent humans have a certain logic to them. (And if you’re opponents’ position really has no logic to it beyond saying anything plausible sounding that backs up their conclusion, that’s very easy to imitate). Thus, the two positions have different logic to them and it will be hard for a person only familiar with one of those logics to imitate the other. On the other hand, if someone is familiar with the logic of both positions A and B, the fact that he nevertheless holds position A is evidence that A is in fact correct.
This is a restatement of the hypothesis under discussion. (That inability to imitate convincingly is caused by lack of understanding.)
You’ve failed to imitate my position. My third objection is about irrelevant detail, not homogeneity. (Perhaps you can suggest a better way I could have put it?)
Again, you’ve failed to imitate my position. For concreteness, let’s take Christopher Monckton as an example. It’s not that I think he’s saying “anything plausible-sounding”. His arguments have a logical structure which is imitable but they are embedded in a rhetorical structure that I would find very hard to imitate convincingly due to lack of practice. (I guess you could characterize this as a form of irrelevant detail and merge it with my objection 3 but I think these two sources of irrelevant detail are sufficiently different in origin and aim to be worth separating.)
I’m not sure where you’re drawing the line between logical and rhetorical structure. The most obvious rhetorical structure is that he acts like he alieves his position in addition to believing it.
On the other hand, any Christian who pretends to be an atheist better than an atheist isn’t a very good Christian. By doing so they are violating the teachings of their God.