A further Group of Useful Maxims
This is my eighth group of the many short principles that help clarify reasoning, decision-making, or analysis. I am featuring some of them in a series of posts, expositing a few of them each time. Many of them are rule-of-thumb approaches that either avoid nonsense or reveal inner workings.
22. The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect occurs when people trust media in areas they are ignorant about.
People can often spot errors in the media in areas they have knowledge of, but continue to trust the same media in areas they don’t know much about. The amnesia part of the effect is that they forget or overlook the known inaccuracy in their area of expertise when they consult it on other matters.
It was originally coined to refer to print media, but the spread of other sources of information has led it to become a phenomenon on social media, network news outlets and other information sources. In the 1980s, many UK readers of the Economist magazine spotted errors and biases in some of its UK coverage, but thought it good on its US coverage. Similarly, US readers thought it good on UK matters, but less so on US matters they had some knowledge of.
The phenomenon was identified by the author Michael Crichton, and named after the American Nobel physicist Murray Gell-Mann. It referred to scientists who were quick to spot errors in papers covering their own area of expertise, but less skeptical about articles in the same journals in fields they were less familiar with.
23. Hitchens’s Razor tells us we need evidence behind assertions.
The journalist Christopher Hitchens coined it in 2005, updating the Latin phrase that tells us that ‘what is asserted gratuitously is denied gratuitously.’ His version of it suggests that what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
It is a version of the fallacy known as ‘Shifting the burden of proof.’ When someone makes a gratuitous assertion, you don’t have to show that it isn’t so; they have to show that it is. It encourages evidence-based reasoning because it dismisses claims that are presented without any evidence to back them up.
Its practical use is that it enables us to waste no time on unsubstantiated assertions that have nothing to back them up with. It enables us to quickly reject baseless or pseudoscientific assertions that are made without any reason to suppose they might be accurate.
24. The Matthew Effect tells us that success breeds success.
It derives its name from the biblical verse Matthew 13:12, “To him that hath shall it be given, and from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away.” It tells us that those with wealth or power or status or skill will gain even more of them, leaving those less well-endowed struggling to catch up.
There is a case for suggesting that those with initial advantages find it easier to use those advantages to augment them. Children of wealthier parents are more likely to have a better education, to have access to their parents’ contacts, and to have parental help in gaining employment and accommodation, or capital to start a business.
Those who achieve status in science are more likely to receive acclaim for subsequent work, and more funding, than relatively unknown scientists. Those talented in sport are more likely to receive superior coaching and financial support. Early readers pull ahead by reading more and becoming more adept at absorbing information and communicating it.
However, it cannot be summarized as “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” because this is not true. In the UK, the gap has been narrowing, and even more spectacularly on a world scale where the richer are indeed getting richer, but the poor are getting richer, too, and at a much faster pace. The Matthew effect has elements of truth, but it doesn’t apply everywhere.
Madsen Pirie