0:19
hello and welcome to New England authors
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so good to have you we record here in
0:25
Cambridge and broadcast on stations
0:27
throughout New England we try to bring
0:29
great ideas and we have a very
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interesting guest today the MacIntyre
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welcome Lee so good to have you thank
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you're the research fellow for the
0:41
center of philosophy and history of
0:43
science at Boston University and his
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book here is called post truth which is
0:50
a new term and we're gonna ask you to
0:54
explain it and it's part of the MIT
0:56
essential knowledge series and was just
0:59
just published so did you write this
1:02
book in response to the election of 2016
1:06
I I did more or less the the important
1:10
thing to remember is that the Oxford
1:12
English dictionary's named post truth
1:14
their word of the year two weeks before
1:16
the election had occurred yeah but I
1:19
have to say that it was after the
1:21
election that I got the idea to do the
1:23
book so I'll tell us what is post truth
1:26
so the the Oxford dictionary's defines
1:29
post truth as a situation where our
1:33
beliefs are structured more around
1:36
feelings and opinions than they are
1:37
around facts and evidence that's the the
1:41
dictionary definition my charge in the
1:44
book was to write about what else folks
1:47
needed to know about it and I think that
1:49
there's more of a political angle to it
1:51
there in my opinion the Oxford
1:55
Dictionary is correct but what I don't
1:58
want to be lost is the idea that opposed
2:01
truth is meant to manipulate someone's
2:05
political reality right well to me this
2:09
isn't anything new people of politicians
2:14
leaders have been lying since the before
2:17
the Roman Empire probably I studied a
2:20
little bit about the Roman Empire I
2:22
could tell you that there was a lot of
2:25
lying deception I grew up in the Vietnam
2:28
era and there was a lot of line not just
2:32
about the Gulf of Tonkin but how many
2:34
casualties were we're taking place the
2:36
Iraq war as we know was based on a lot
2:40
what's different so it's it's good
2:43
question I think it post truth is an
2:45
umbrella term it can cover lying it can
2:47
cover political spin other sorts of
2:50
things but really the important thing to
2:52
remember about post truth is that it's
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not just lying it's the idea that we can
2:58
lie without consequence it's the idea
3:01
that people can say untrue things or
3:04
ignore facts or pretend that things that
3:06
happen really didn't happen and get away
3:08
with it because seemingly I don't want
3:11
to say no one cares because there are
3:13
plenty of people who care but if they're
3:15
not accountable for the lie I think that
3:17
that's really a better definition of
3:19
post truth and to say that it's merely
3:21
lying though you're right
3:22
lying's been around for a long time I
3:24
think maybe even post truth has been
3:25
around for a long time so you use some
3:28
key psychological concepts can you
3:33
expand on what of these psychological
3:36
concepts you're talking about yeah in
3:38
the book I talk about cognitive bias
3:41
there's a there's a terrific book by
3:44
Daniel Kahneman called Thinking Fast and
3:46
Slow when he talks about all sorts of by
3:49
cognitive biases their cognitive biases
3:52
are built in shortcuts in the brain that
3:55
can feel a lot like thinking but they're
3:58
not actually thinking right and they
4:00
lead us to a conclusion whether we're
4:01
justified or not one that I talk about
4:04
in the book is confirmation bias which
4:06
is when you already know what you want
4:08
to believe right and you go out and you
4:10
shop for facts to back up but what you
4:12
already believe we all do this we do
4:15
it's well it's wired in right it's it's
4:17
it's wired into us another interesting
4:21
cognitive bias that's wired into all of
4:23
us that I think is a one of the
4:25
precursors to post truth is the
4:28
it's called the dunning-kruger effect
4:29
it's sometimes colloquially called the
4:32
too stupid to know they're a stupid
4:34
effect and yeah the idea what an ignoble
4:39
prize the idea behind the dunning-kruger
4:43
effect is but it's an important effect
4:46
and the idea behind it is that people
4:48
who are incompetent lack the skill to
4:50
understand that they're incompetent so
4:53
that when they're trying to assess
4:55
whether so apply it in this context if
4:57
somebody's trying to assess whether or
4:59
not they know something whether or not
5:01
they're skilled enough to understand
5:03
what the facts are to justify their
5:04
belief if they really don't understand
5:07
they don't understand and they might
5:09
think that they know something that they
5:11
don't actually know so it's yeah false
5:14
knowledge is a bigger danger here than
5:19
you bring up some one other one I don't
5:21
I didn't think he mentioned it it's that
5:24
and for a dictatorship to thrive people
5:26
have to think that they're acting on
5:28
their own free will yes they that idea
5:32
comes down to us through through history
5:34
I think that the idea here is supposed
5:37
to be that if you can actually convince
5:40
somebody that what you're saying is true
5:43
or even that they're not even going to
5:47
look for evidence they're just going to
5:48
believe that what you say is true then
5:51
you've really got them dictators don't
5:54
have to have that dictators can control
5:57
your reality in other ways if you think
6:00
about propaganda if you think about
6:02
authoritarian governments I mean one way
6:04
to control the population is to get them
6:06
to agree with you to get them to believe
6:08
what you want them to believe you don't
6:10
absolutely that's the easy way yeah
6:12
the harder way is just to get them to
6:14
comply in their behavior and so you
6:16
really don't have to get them to believe
6:19
Jason Stanley wrote a book called how
6:21
propaganda works and he makes the point
6:24
in his book that propaganda isn't meant
6:26
to convince you it's meant to show you
6:27
who's boss so it's really it's nice if
6:31
propaganda can convince someone and then
6:33
the ruler has no trouble but even if it
6:35
doesn't convince someone if you can just
6:37
show that I can lie and get away with it
6:39
and there's nothing that you can do
6:41
about it then you're dominating their
6:44
so propaganda comes from the word to
6:47
propagate and it's not a bad it wasn't a
6:50
bad word in fact in Spanish it's used as
6:53
to advertise right but you but now we
6:57
use it very differently and the thing
7:01
that really interested me is you talk a
7:03
lot about Fox News and Rush Limbaugh
7:06
you're not too kind to Fox News do you
7:10
elaborate where did Fox News come from
7:13
why are you so down on them well the the
7:18
thing that look there's there's always
7:20
been allegations of bias there's always
7:23
been concern about partisanship and I
7:26
think that the question that has to
7:28
arise is someone's intent is a news
7:33
outlet obeying the good journalistic
7:36
practices of fact-checking
7:40
double-double sourcing ideas of
7:43
disclosing conflicts of interest so
7:45
they're they're not maybe the only
7:47
partisan news outlet but the question
7:50
that always comes up for me with Fox is
7:52
what's their intent is their intent that
7:54
they actually discover facts and then
7:57
present them or is the idea that they
7:59
are is it confirmation bias do they
8:01
already know what they want their point
8:03
of view to be and then they they present
8:06
it in that way and so I guess going back
8:10
to what you said about propaganda maybe
8:12
you prefer the word disinformation and
8:15
that that I think is some of what
8:17
happens with with Fox News there was
8:19
actually a study done
8:21
not long ago which found that people who
8:22
watched Fox News were more poorly
8:26
informed than people who didn't watch
8:28
any news at all yes I read that and
8:30
you're right and so the idea there is
8:33
that and this idea goes back to Socrates
8:36
false knowledge is worse than ignorance
8:38
because if somebody has a false belief
8:40
then they think they already know the
8:42
truth if they're ignorant then maybe
8:43
they can be taught and so ideology the
8:47
extent to which you're trying to tell
8:50
somebody something that you want them to
8:53
believe is true whether you believe it
8:55
the way right so somebody could maybe be
8:58
disingenuous maybe some of the
8:59
commentators the opinion commentators on
9:02
Fox don't really believe what they're
9:03
saying but if their goal is to get their
9:05
audience to believe it or just as I said
9:08
to dominate their reality in a way then
9:10
I think that's a very bad thing so you
9:13
also said that Fox News has a tremendous
9:17
reach I don't know did you mention how
9:20
many people watch Fox News or get their
9:22
their information for I don't have I
9:24
don't have that information either it is
9:27
it is high I think they're the number
9:30
one rated cable network but but I don't
9:33
know the exact viewership numbers might
9:35
be in the book but I don't remember but
9:37
I think you mentioned how much money
9:39
they make compared to CBS what could you
9:43
talk about that yeah there during the
9:45
election cycle now CNN also made quite a
9:50
bit of money and and this is one beef
9:51
that people have that what CNN would do
9:54
is that they would just run from rallies
9:57
live with no interruption no commentary
10:00
on it because then people would turn to
10:02
the channel and they would make a lot of
10:04
money and the the number that I remember
10:06
was a billion dollars that they made a
10:08
billion dollars profit in in the year
10:12
and I think Fox News made 1.3 billion so
10:15
that's that's an awful lot of money
10:17
yeah so the you also mentioned that the
10:21
media outlets gave Trump five billion
10:25
dollars in free advertising you estimate
10:27
in the form of news that so you'd have
10:33
to agree that he was pretty pretty sure
10:36
about this he was yeah pretty successful
10:39
and there was he understands how media
10:42
he understood he's he understood what
10:46
showmanship is and how to hold an
10:48
audience and I think that you know you
10:51
think about CNN at the time why were
10:54
they so riveted to the coverage why did
10:57
they want to run the rallies live it's
10:59
because they were making money from it
11:01
their their viewers liked it there was
11:03
some criticisms later over whether they
11:08
doing this and there was Samia Copas
11:10
from Jeff Zucker and and others at the
11:14
network at the time wondering you know
11:16
did we do the wrong thing in this
11:19
because to the extent that running a
11:22
political event in which someone isn't
11:25
telling the truth and a news
11:28
organization is not correcting a bit
11:30
just running it live that's that is
11:33
promoting disinformation we have a great
11:36
guest here Lee MacIntyre and we're
11:38
talking about the book post truth you
11:41
also wrote another book called
11:44
respecting truth willful ignorance in
11:47
the digital age you're really interested
11:50
in truth aren't you I am what one book
11:54
led to the other is what happened I was
11:56
I was very happily interested in the
12:00
problem of science denial I was
12:02
interested yes how how it is that people
12:05
can look at the facts about climate
12:07
change evolution by natural selection
12:10
the weather vaccines cause autism all of
12:14
those sorts of questions and respecting
12:17
truth was about that respecting truth
12:19
was out about what was wrong with people
12:21
who rejected scientific facts that they
12:24
didn't like the problem is that science
12:27
denial is became one of the main roots
12:30
of post truth and the problems sort of
12:32
metastasized from just science denial to
12:36
fact denial next thing you know people
12:38
were denying facts about the size of the
12:41
Trump's inauguration or disinformation
12:44
about there were many sites on the
12:49
internet and Trump also made the claim
12:50
that he actually won the popular vote
12:52
when he didn't so those are those end up
12:56
being problematic one because I was
13:00
interested in science denial it seemed a
13:02
natural thing to then move over to to
13:06
now speaking of silent science denial
13:08
you talked about the tobacco industry
13:12
they were they were they spearheaded
13:15
science denial would you say that I
13:17
would say science and Iowa's been around
13:22
before but what happened with the
13:27
tobacco lobby in the 1950s is that there
13:30
was there was a study that was going to
13:33
be published which a scientific study
13:35
that linked cigarette smoking to cancer
13:38
and the response of the tobacco
13:41
companies was to get together they
13:43
invited a public relations person and
13:45
they thought about what their response
13:46
was going to be and the response that
13:48
the public relations person gave them
13:50
was you've got to fight this with your
13:52
own scientists you've got to hire your
13:54
own scientists you know fight the data
13:57
and get your story out there so they
13:59
bought full-page ads to try to muddy the
14:01
water to try to create doubt where there
14:04
wasn't any that history is well told in
14:07
Naomi Oreskes book merchants of doubt'
14:09
yes and she calls that the tobacco
14:11
strategy interesting thing and that was
14:13
in the 50s interesting thing happened
14:15
with the tobacco strategy it became the
14:18
go-to strategy for science deniers on
14:20
acid rain the ozone hole climate change
14:24
it's in some cases that it was even some
14:28
of the same people and some of the same
14:30
source of money for this so as
14:33
interesting she tells that story very
14:36
very well along with her co-author Erik
14:38
Conway in her book I tell a little piece
14:41
of it in post truth just to lay the
14:44
marker that hardcore science denial
14:47
partisan science denial not just from a
14:51
commercial interest but then evolving
14:53
over into a political interest started
14:56
in the 1950s and then sort of culminated
14:58
with climate change and then made the
15:00
leap to post truth so what's the what's
15:02
the post truth of climate change what's
15:07
the strategy of people who deny climate
15:10
change they have their own alternative
15:13
set of facts the interesting thing about
15:17
that the interesting thing about climate
15:21
change denial is that they will
15:23
sometimes use facts they'll sometimes
15:24
quote NASA data but it's cherry-picking
15:28
they'll cherry-pick facts that they they
15:30
want to use which is a well-known tactic
15:33
of conspiracy theorists conspiracy
15:36
some climate change deniers are
15:38
conspiracy theorists they'll claim that
15:39
the world's climate scientists are all
15:43
of particular politicals persuasion and
15:46
they've all colluded somehow to pretend
15:48
that the question of climate changes is
15:50
closed when it's not problem with
15:52
conspiracy theories is they they paint
15:54
themselves as skeptics so they can talk
15:57
a good game about how well they're
15:58
really more scientific than the
16:00
scientists this question hasn't been
16:01
proven yet what you find with conspiracy
16:05
theorists is that they actually they're
16:09
quite gullible they'll believe data that
16:11
they'll use they'll believe what they
16:14
want to believe runs very little
16:16
evidence but if it's a claim that they
16:17
don't want to believe then no evidence
16:19
will convince them and I think that's
16:21
sort of where we are on climate change
16:22
how much data do there need to be to
16:26
prove to somebody that climate change is
16:28
real I don't know if you know this but
16:30
the Flat Earth theory is back there is a
16:33
convention in Denver coming up that is
16:37
devoted the the Flat Earth international
16:39
conference so that data has been around
16:42
for 500 years but people deny it I see I
16:46
well Flat Earth is not something that we
16:50
can deny to too easily but I think I
16:55
think one of the problems with climate
16:57
change is that it's it doesn't really we
17:02
don't know what to do and so we we tried
17:05
to do do nothing because you know and
17:09
there was a very interesting article in
17:12
The New York Times owned some time ago
17:14
about how this started in the 1980s with
17:20
the Republican administration that even
17:24
ExxonMobil was on board for climate
17:26
change and then they they went off board
17:31
because they didn't see any and they
17:33
need to do you know anything about that
17:36
it didn't used to be a partisan issue
17:39
George Bush the first was famous for
17:43
saying that he was going to fight the
17:44
greenhouse effect with the White House
17:46
effect and it wasn't that many years ago
17:50
Newt Gingrich were sitting on a couch on
17:52
TV talking about a bipartisan approach
17:55
to to climate change I think it really
17:57
got politicized after the debacle with
18:00
the 2000 election and Al Gore publishing
18:04
his book and then it was seen by focus
18:07
on the right as a as a partisan issue
18:09
the problem with climate change is that
18:12
it's it's real and there really is not
18:15
much if any scientific dissent on this
18:19
problem but it gets mixed up somehow
18:23
with the values question it gets mixed
18:25
up with the question of well what should
18:29
or do we want to do anything about it if
18:32
if people didn't like the response to
18:35
climate change because it was too
18:36
expensive then I think they should just
18:39
say that they should just say we don't
18:41
want to spend the money on it and we're
18:42
not that worried about the next
18:43
generation but to then end up denying
18:46
that it's true I think that's that's an
18:50
easy move for someone to make and don't
18:52
forget that this has really happened
18:55
before look at the tobacco strategy
18:57
right what started out with a commission
18:58
commercial interest became a political
19:01
interest same thing happened with
19:03
climate change the interesting story
19:05
about Exxon Mobil is that all the while
19:08
that they were denying climate change
19:10
there are now leaked memos to show that
19:13
they were making plans for how to look
19:16
for new oil deposits once the polar ice
19:19
cap had melted so they were talking out
19:22
of both sides of their mouth yes yes yes
19:24
now you mentioned that news as we know
19:29
it is a fairly recent event and last
19:33
century or so could you talk a little
19:36
about that work where it came from
19:40
journalism because before that time if
19:45
you read newspapers from the 1800's they
19:48
were very partisan they were they they
19:51
idea of journalist standards as we know
19:56
that was one of the most interesting
19:59
pieces of research that I did it was
20:01
something that I really didn't know
20:03
about until I did the research for the
20:05
book and what I found is that we really
20:08
sort of spoiled in expecting over the
20:11
last several decades that we would have
20:13
objective news if you look in the
20:16
history of the world there have been new
20:18
sources that people understood that they
20:21
weren't objective and they had to look
20:22
in you know several different places in
20:25
order to find use their brain to find
20:27
out what was true they didn't just
20:28
expect to be able to read it in the New
20:30
York Times and it was automatically true
20:31
the the really fascinating part of this
20:34
story that I found is that the the very
20:38
notion of objectivity in news was born
20:41
from The Associated Press and the idea
20:44
was that there were all of these and
20:46
this was a hundred years ago there were
20:48
all of these newspapers which had their
20:50
partisan points of view but then once
20:52
the telegraph was invented they all had
20:55
to have a source for the facts that they
20:57
were then gonna later spin and so The
20:59
Associated Press had to figure out how
21:01
to give us plain vanila an idea of news
21:04
as they could that then went out over
21:06
the wire and then all the newspapers
21:08
took it and spun it and did whatever
21:10
they wanted to do but that was really
21:12
where the idea of objectivity and news
21:14
came from quite recent how interesting
21:17
one one did The Associated Press form I
21:21
don't remember the exact date but it was
21:23
it was close to the beginning of the of
21:27
the 20th century maybe a little bit
21:28
uh-huh a little bit before that I mean
21:30
if you go back just before that yellow
21:32
journalism the Hearst newspaper things
21:35
were pretty bad yes and it was it was
21:37
about that period I think a little bit
21:39
after that more around 1910 or so I'd
21:42
have to take a look at my book to remind
21:44
myself of the date but that that's about
21:47
what had happened but now objective
21:50
journalism is falling by the wayside
21:52
would you agree with that you have a you
21:54
have a you have a statistic that 44% of
21:59
Americans get their news from Facebook
22:01
for example which is not an objection
22:04
so um it's it's it's not that there
22:08
isn't objective news out there or that
22:11
it's not the ideal that some news
22:13
organizations are striving for it's that
22:16
people have lost trust and people need
22:20
as I said to be able to do a little bit
22:22
of work to figure out what are the the
22:24
good news sources when the news is
22:27
bifurcated into you know different
22:29
partisan outlets we really don't don't
22:33
know what to believe that can be a
22:35
problem there's there's fake news
22:37
there's spin there's bias how how do we
22:41
know what the objective sources are
22:43
sometimes the media don't help because I
22:46
think there's actually such a thing as
22:48
objectivity bias which is when they
22:51
think that in order to show that they're
22:54
not biased they have to present two
22:55
sides of a point of view exactly even if
22:58
one of them is a lie that's not that's
23:00
not real objectivity the the media
23:03
should be their job is to tell the truth
23:05
not to tell not to give somebody who's a
23:09
liar equal time yes so for example
23:11
having someone a debate between someone
23:15
who is a climate denier and someone who
23:17
is a environmentalist yeah that's not a
23:21
real debate no because there is no
23:24
there's only one truth in there oh
23:26
they're giving a platform for people who
23:28
have a political agenda yeah it would be
23:31
as if going back to tobacco lobby that
23:34
they didn't have to buy the
23:35
advertisements they just bullied their
23:37
way onto cable news and could could talk
23:39
about it there's one important quotation
23:43
here I can't remember who said it but
23:44
it's that the halfway point between
23:46
truth and a lie is still a lie
23:49
interesting so this is our New England
23:53
authors were so good to have to have
23:56
lead McIntyre with us who's talking
24:00
we're talking about truth and the denial
24:03
of truth and I want to ask you you
24:07
didn't talk about religion in your book
24:10
or fundamentalism from purposely well
24:13
the book was my charge in writing this
24:16
book was to talk specifically about
24:18
the roots of post truth and I did say a
24:22
little bit about fundamentalist religion
24:25
in respecting truth because I think that
24:28
there I talked about how ideology can be
24:31
the enemy of truth and I think that
24:33
political bias is or political ideology
24:37
is one type of ideology but religious
24:39
ideology can be another when one's
24:42
talking about political ideology I think
24:45
that there's a sense that sometimes it's
24:47
it's more cynical that maybe the folks
24:49
don't really believe it but they want to
24:51
present it is true in order to get other
24:53
partisans on their side I would hope
24:55
that that's not true with people who are
24:57
religious I think that they're they
25:00
probably genuinely believe what they
25:03
believe it can still however lead to
25:06
problems with denial the example that
25:10
springs to mind here is evolution by
25:12
natural selection there are empirical
25:14
questions that deserve a scientific
25:18
answer but if someone comes at it from a
25:20
religious point of view they're not
25:22
going to get to that answer and they
25:24
might even be tempted to be a denialist
25:26
about that as some folks are about
25:29
evolution by natural selection thank you
25:31
okay I have a couple of quotes I'd like
25:34
to comment on what is striking about the
25:38
idea of post truth is not just that
25:41
truth is being challenged but that it is
25:43
being challenged as a mechanism for
25:46
asserting political dominance to comment
25:49
that that's the dark underbelly of post
25:52
truth I just want to ask we know that
25:56
post truth is really good for
25:59
authoritarian country or authoritarian
26:03
people it's also good for businesses
26:06
like like the oil businesses or Fox News
26:14
well opposed truth is a it's a means
26:17
it's a tactic that can be used by people
26:19
for different purposes and can be used
26:21
for political purposes it can also be
26:23
used for commercial purposes fake news
26:26
really started from people who were
26:29
creating clickbait so that if you
26:32
they're fake stories they would make a
26:34
few cents for each one then it was
26:37
weaponized and it became more political
26:39
but it's very short-sighted to think of
26:42
it that way because I think that the
26:43
long-term damage of creating a post
26:46
truth society is really incalculable
