I’m not sure how that distinction actually cashes out in practice. I mean, you never have the option of directly controlling what people think, so you can always argue that you’ve “let the people decide”. But you (generic “you”, not Lumifer in particular) often have a definite opinion about what’s right, so someone can always argue that “the right answer is preordained”.
Suppose I write some stuff about mathematics, explaining (say) how the surreal numbers work. Am I “preventing crimethink”? I haven’t told my audience “of course this stuff is as likely to be wrong as right”, I haven’t made any attempt to find people who think there’s a contradiction or something in the theory; I’ve just told them what I think is right.
What if I do the same with evolution?
What if I do the same with anthropogenic climate change?
The difference is in whether you think that disagreeing with your views is acceptable or not.
You tell people how you think the world works and why do you believe this, they say “I don’t think that’s right”, you shrug and let them be—it’s one thing.
You tell people how you think the world works and why do you believe this, they say “I don’t think that’s right”, you say “This will not stand, you need to be re-educated and made to disbelieve the false prophets”—that’s quite a different thing.
Ah, OK. Then the paper we’re discussing is not about “preventing crimethink”: it is not saying, nor advocating saying, anything like what you describe in that last paragraph.
However, I suspect you will still want to characterize it as “preventing crimethink”. Perhaps consider whether you can give a characterization of that term with a bit less spin on it?
(I think the authors are pretty sure they are right about global warming. They believe there is a lot of misinformation around, much of it deliberate. They suggest ways to pre-empt such misinformation and thereby make people less likely to believe it and more likely to believe what the authors consider to be the truth. But they do not say it is “unacceptable” to take a different view; they just think it’s incorrect. And they aren’t concerned with what you say to someone who has already made up their mind the other way; they are looking at ways to make that less likely to happen as a result of misinformation.)
Maybe they do. Maybe they’re wrong. But holding a wrong opinion is not the same thing as attempting Orwellian thought control.
(My guess is that what they actually think is that almost all the misinformation, and most of the worst misinformation, is coming from the skeptics’ side. It appears to me that they are in fact correct.)
I’m not sure how that distinction actually cashes out in practice. I mean, you never have the option of directly controlling what people think, so you can always argue that you’ve “let the people decide”. But you (generic “you”, not Lumifer in particular) often have a definite opinion about what’s right, so someone can always argue that “the right answer is preordained”.
Suppose I write some stuff about mathematics, explaining (say) how the surreal numbers work. Am I “preventing crimethink”? I haven’t told my audience “of course this stuff is as likely to be wrong as right”, I haven’t made any attempt to find people who think there’s a contradiction or something in the theory; I’ve just told them what I think is right.
What if I do the same with evolution?
What if I do the same with anthropogenic climate change?
The difference is in whether you think that disagreeing with your views is acceptable or not.
You tell people how you think the world works and why do you believe this, they say “I don’t think that’s right”, you shrug and let them be—it’s one thing.
You tell people how you think the world works and why do you believe this, they say “I don’t think that’s right”, you say “This will not stand, you need to be re-educated and made to disbelieve the false prophets”—that’s quite a different thing.
Ah, OK. Then the paper we’re discussing is not about “preventing crimethink”: it is not saying, nor advocating saying, anything like what you describe in that last paragraph.
However, I suspect you will still want to characterize it as “preventing crimethink”. Perhaps consider whether you can give a characterization of that term with a bit less spin on it?
(I think the authors are pretty sure they are right about global warming. They believe there is a lot of misinformation around, much of it deliberate. They suggest ways to pre-empt such misinformation and thereby make people less likely to believe it and more likely to believe what the authors consider to be the truth. But they do not say it is “unacceptable” to take a different view; they just think it’s incorrect. And they aren’t concerned with what you say to someone who has already made up their mind the other way; they are looking at ways to make that less likely to happen as a result of misinformation.)
Why? :-P
The problem is, I bet they believe all the misinformation is coming from the sceptics’ side.
Maybe they do. Maybe they’re wrong. But holding a wrong opinion is not the same thing as attempting Orwellian thought control.
(My guess is that what they actually think is that almost all the misinformation, and most of the worst misinformation, is coming from the skeptics’ side. It appears to me that they are in fact correct.)
It appears to me that they are not, but I’m disinclined to do another dance round the same mulberry bush...