pinker’s fallacy
Something’s been bothering me about the line of reasoning in Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature, but it took me awhile. It seemed fairly clear that the book wasn’t pragmatically useful, since it advances a complacent thesis, but I couldn’t see how that made it actually wrong. Then I remembered the book that made such a splash recently: Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan.
Taleb’s thesis, which has been reprinted all over the place, is that most predictive models fail to adequately account for rare, extreme variations. These “outlier” possibilities, though extremely unlikely by themselves, are not at all rare when you compound them. For example, in Northern California, school is canceled when there are downed electrical wires, damage to the school, snow, or certain other conditions. None of these things happen often, but I could be fairly certain that I’d get at least two unanticipated holidays every year, and sometimes more.
Pinker’s argument is that, because of technological and ideological progress, we are attacking each other on a vastly reduced scale. In all likelihood, if you derive a simple “violence rate” by dividing Incidents/Population, he is right. But there are certain scenarios, such as a global nuclear war, that would fly in the face of any previous trend. The correct approach to the Holocaust is not only counting the number of deaths, but also considering the event’s implications. In addition to the obvious, negative significance of genocide, it was quite easy for one empire, acting mostly unilaterally, to commit mass murder with industrial technology.
We know all this instinctively. If somebody offers you a deal where 999 out of 1000 times you win $200, but 1 out of 1000 times you lose every dollar in the bank, you will decline. The fact that you probably just passed on $200 won’t even bother you much. Even if, when you lose, you only lose $180,000 — making the offer a good deal statistically — you will still decline, because you couldn’t survive getting unlucky.
That’s why Pinker’s argument doesn’t sit right. If there is a “perfect storm” scenario that threatens most of humanity, then that’s reason enough to be vigilant. Whether or not it happens is irrelevant; hopefully it doesn’t. When it comes to industrialized possibilities for violence, one black swan matters more than a hundred predictable, humane years.
Pinker understands the concept of Black Swans and does not deny the threat of a perfect storm. He is not purporting to predict the future but is offering an evidence-based explaination for the counter-intuitive assertion that there has been a dramatic decline in violence. I think he is well aware that things could unexpectedly go south and that humankind could wipe itself out.
In some ways, I thiink this is where the whole question of his writing the book gets interesting. If it’s not predictive, then why write it? If he’s making an evidence-based argument, but there’s no pragmatic benefit to making that argument, how can the book have any positive effect?
For example, if I have epilepsy, and go for ten months without having a seizure, I could write an evidence-based paper to the effect that my incidence of seizures is going down. If, the following month, I am constantly hospitalized because of my condition, then obviously the value of that earlier argument shrinks to almost nothing. Now, perhaps I didn’t know what was coming — but if I do know what is coming, because similar peaks and valleys have happened in the past, then how can I really justify my preceding burst of optimism?
It is worthwhile to try to gain a greater understanding about human nature, including what conditons are conducive to lessening violence, even though we may not be able to predict accurately whether a perceived trend will continue. Pinker acknowledges that if certain conditions change for the worse, such as a decline in confidence in the legitimacy of government, could cause the trend to reverse. Bu a better understanding of the conditions conducive to positive change is useful even if we can’t predict if we will get there.
So, naturally, I agree that it is worthwhile to gain a greater understanding of human nature, and I do think that’s possible through examining empirical evidence.
Two objections to Pinker’s method. First of all, you have to treat conditions of possibility as empirical, and I’m just not convinced he’s doing that. Here’s what I mean: the invention of nuclear weapons not only creates one particular disaster scenario (nuclear winter etc), but also creates a strong incentive for peace under every other condition. DefCon 2 would have been sufficient provocation to start a conventional war, but since nobody wants a nuclear war, and we don’t reach DefCon 1…the result is, apparently, peace. Certainly, by having the theory of the Cold War that Pinker has, he’s counting this second result, but treating the first as though it is unrelated — as though it’s akin to humanity being wiped out by an asteroid. The chain of events that leads to a modern terrorist state like Iran having nuclear weapons begins with the “relatively peaceful” Cold War between the US and the USSR.
That’s only one very specific way of stating the larger issues with the Enlightenment that prompted very rational, scientifically-minded people like Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer to declare themselves anti-Enlightenment.
The second problem is the inseparability of observer and observed. Although Pinker’s book does not, by itself, change the course of history, it’s also not outside of history. So one has to ask what such a book, by and large, accomplishes. Does it reduce paranoia or increase complacency? Does it increase the public’s esteem for rationality, or does it encourage people to be even more indifferent than they already are to genocide? I want to believe it does the former, but I worry that it does the latter.
To give just one example, here in the United States we are already going through the convulsions of a loss of faith in the legitimacy of government, in the form of the Fox News “Tea Party” movement. I don’t think Pinker’s book intervenes effectively to restore that faith, and I also don’t think that faith, pure and simple, is the answer. Not only do people need to have faith in the government, but the government has to be legitimate, and deserving of their faith.
Pinker, like Taleb and writers of thoughtful blogs, would have been burned at the stake several centuries ago for having the temerity to question conventional wisdom and dogma. The very fact that he makes us think and question accepted beliefs makes his work useful, even if it has no predictive value. You make a good point that there is a risk that his conclusions can make us complacent. But that risk always exists, especially when people rely on media summaries. Anyone who takes the time to slog through all 700 pages, as you evidently have, should not reasonably conclude that we have a basis to be complacent, but ironically the fact that Pinker took pains to explicate his views at such length increases the likelihood that some will rely on media summaries and draw the wrong conclusions.
Victor, this is such a trenchant comment that I’m going to let you have the last word. I would agree that Pinker deserves more credit than I gave him in terms of sparking an interesting and worthwhile debate.
This has been my first experience posting comments on someone’s blog. Yours is now bookmarked on my computer. Perusing through your archives I came across the posts about Nash and Turing. Have you read Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson? It’s fascinating. On the subject of persecuted homosexuals, I’m having the odd responsibility of defending New York’s Marriage Equality Act against a lawsuit brought by a right-wing group claiming that the New York State Senate violated the open meetings law in enacting the statute (I’m an obscure appellate attorney working in the New York Atty. Gen.’s office). I say odd because the lawsuit, rather than focusing on the pros and cons of gay marriage, turns on the right of supposedly pro-sunshine politicians to meet secretly in private to reach deals on legislation.
I’ve just downloaded Cryptonomicon; I totally enjoyed Snow Crash, even though it wasn’t a completely successful mixture of big ideas and pulpy pulp. I’ll post my reactions to it when I’m finished. Of course, I’m not positive when that will be, since if memory serves, it’s a brick of a book.
Thanks for the bookmark! You may find it helpful to use something like Google Reader or Readefine for blogs, since otherwise it can be difficult to track what’s being updated when. (That’s how I cope, given that I was already in a state of information overload even before I began reading and writing blogs.)
Good luck with the case. I’m not at all surprised to see the Right taking a kitchen sink approach to their legal challenges. At least it makes them appear as desperate as they, in fact, really are.
It’s a brick but a fun, quick yet deep read. Keep in mind when it was published, in 1999, which seems like yesterday but from a technology standpoint is ages ago. Just like Snowcrash, circa 1993, and Neuromancer, circa 1983. Crypto itself switches to and from WW2, whet you meet Turing.