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Not Born Yesterday

Page 21

by Hugo Mercier


  going to be repatriated.”1 Here, the speaker identifies the relevant

  source of information, allowing his interlocutor to gauge its ac-

  curacy more easily. Proper credit (if the information turns out

  to be true) or blame (if it doesn’t) can be given not only to the

  speaker but also to Bill Smith. This motivates members of the

  network to be more careful when starting rumors, as false rumors

  jeopardize their reputation not only with those with whom they

  share the rumor but also with every individual to whom the

  rumor then spreads.

  By contrast, inaccurate rumors are accompanied by vague

  sourcing (“ people say that . . .”) or, worse, by inaccurate sourc-

  ing that increases the credibility of the rumor. The rumeur

  d’Orléans was made more plausible by its sources: “A friend’s

  father is a cop, and he’s investigating a kidnapping case . . .” or “My

  cousin’s wife is a nurse, and she treated the victim of an attempted

  kidnapping . . .”2 The obvious prob lem with these sources is that

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  c ir c ul a r r e p o r t in g 167

  they are simply false: no such cop or nurse exists. A less obvious

  prob lem is that the sources remain the same throughout the

  chain of rumor transmission.

  In theory, the information about the (imaginary) credible

  source should have become increasingly diluted as the rumor was

  passed along, going from, say, “a friend’s father” to “a friend’s

  friend’s father,” “a friend’s friend’s friend’s father,” and so forth.

  But this is not what the researchers observed. The length of the

  chain was never acknowledged. Instead, most of the people re-

  ported the rumor as being validated by “a friend’s father” (or the

  equivalent cousin’s wife, etc.). As sociologist Edgard Morin,

  who led the team studying the rumeur d’Orléans, put it: “Each new

  transmitter [of the rumor] suppresses the new link, and rebuilds

  a chain with only two or three links.”3

  Sourcing can greatly help or hinder the work of open vigilance

  mechanisms. Why does it work so well in some cases, and so

  poorly in others? To better understand, we must start by appre-

  ciating the omnipresence of sources.

  Omnipresent Sources

  Paying close attention to sources might seem to be the remit of

  professionals. Since Thucydides and his History of the Pelopon-

  nesian War, historians have reflected on which sources their work

  should be based on, distinguishing primary from secondary

  sources, debating the reliability and in de pen dence of their

  sources— engaging in historiography. More recently, journalists

  have also learned to practice source criticism, not relying on a

  single source, finding in de pen dent means of evaluating their

  sources’ credibility, double- checking every thing. Clearly, in some

  domains, people must take great care to find, track, evaluate, and

  cross- check their sources. Absent this learned, reflective practice,

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  the information provided by academics or journalists cannot be

  relied upon.

  Yet sourcing isn’t restricted to professionals. We all do it, all the

  time, but usually in an intuitive, rather than reflective, manner.

  For instance, imagine asking your friend Aluna about a movie

  you consider watching. She tells you one of the fol owing:

  (1) It’s good.

  (2) I saw it last week, it’s good.

  (3) I heard it’s good.

  (4) Osogo told me it’s good.

  (5) The

  Chicago Sun- Times says it’s good.

  Even though the opinion (“it’s good”) remains the same, you

  weigh it differently as a function of how it is presented. The least

  convincing would likely be (3), because it provides little informa-

  tion with which to evaluate the opinion. How you weigh the

  others would depend on your judgment on the tastes of Aluna,

  Osogo, and the Chicago Sun- Times movie critic. Even when no

  source is explic itly provided, as in (1), you would likely be able

  to draw some inferences: if Aluna utters (1), she is more likely to

  have seen the movie than to base her opinion only on the trailer,

  or on a movie review. The provision of information about sources

  gives more fodder to our mechanisms of open vigilance.

  Specifying the source of our statements is so impor tant that

  many languages make it grammatically mandatory. In En glish,

  you must indicate the tense of the verb to make a grammatically

  correct sentence. In Wanka Quechua, a language spoken in the

  south of Peru, you must specify how you acquired a given piece

  of information:

  (1) Chay- chruu- mi achka wamla- pis walashr- pis: “Many

  girls and boys were swimming” (I saw them)

  c ir c ul a r r e p o r t in g 169

  (2) Daañu pawa- shra-si ka- ya- n- chr- ari: “It (the field)

  might be completely destroyed” (I infer)

  (3) Ancha- p- shi wa’a- chi- nki wamla- a- ta: “You make my

  daughter cry too much” (they tell me)4

  The bits in bold— the evidentials— are used to tell whether

  the speaker owes their belief to direct perception, inference, or

  hearsay. Wanka Quechua is far from being unique: at least a quar-

  ter of the world’s languages possess some kind of evidentials.5

  Some languages have relatively simple systems with only two

  evidentials, such as Cherokee, which distinguishes between first-

  hand and non- firsthand information.6 Other languages, like

  Kaluli, spoken in Papua New Guinea, have complex systems,

  with a great variety of evidentials to choose from.

  Whether they are conveyed through evidentials, with explicit

  mentions (“Peter told me”), or left implicit (“This movie is good”

  suggests direct experience), sources are omnipresent in language.

  Why?

  For open vigilance mechanisms, an obvious role of source in-

  formation is to make a statement more convincing, for example,

  by specifying that it stems from direct perception or from a reli-

  able individual. But why would sources make a statement more

  convincing? After all, if you don’t trust the speaker enough to

  accept their statement (“Paula is pregnant”), it’s not immedi-

  ately obvious why you should trust them when they give you

  source information (“I’ve seen Paula”). Indeed, when the speaker

  is thought to be dishonest, source information doesn’t help. If

  your poker partner tel s you, “I’m looking at my hand, I have a

  royal flush, you should fold,” they won’t be any more convinc-

  ing than if they told you, “You should fold.”

  Fortunately, in most interactions we don’t suspect our inter-

  locutors of such dishonesty. But that doesn’t mean we trust them

  170 ch ap t er 11

  entirely; far from it. In many cases we don’t think them competent

  or diligent enough to warrant changing our minds only on the

  basis of their opinion. It is in these situations that providing

  sources makes statements more convincing. For example, I trust

  my wife a lot. I trust her with
our kids. I would trust her with my

  life. But if, while we’re shopping, I think there are eggs in the fridge

  and she says there aren’t, I don’t believe her. It’s obviously not that

  I suspect her of lying but that I don’t have reasons to believe she’s

  in a better position than I am to know what the egg situation is. If

  she tel s me, “I checked the fridge before leaving; there were no

  eggs left,” I’m convinced that we have to buy more eggs.

  By default, statements are attributed to the speaker’s ability

  to draw inferences, which becomes the main locus for estima-

  tions of competence: we believe people more if we think them

  better at drawing inferences (in the relevant domain). By provid-

  ing sources we outsource ( pardon the pun) competence to

  other cognitive mechanisms— chiefly, perception—or to other

  people. These other sources become the locus of the estimation

  of competence and can be used to convince our interlocutors

  when they believe that our senses, or some third parties, are more

  reliable than our inferential abilities.

  Yet people do not always provide information about the

  sources of their beliefs in order to persuade their interlocutors.

  Sometimes, source information has the opposite effect. If Bill

  says, “Someone told me Paula is pregnant,” you might be less in-

  clined to believe him than if he had simply said, “Paula is preg-

  nant.” Why would Bill give you reasons not to believe him?

  We use what we know about our interlocutors— how compe-

  tent and diligent they are—to evaluate their messages, but we

  also use what we know about messages to evaluate our inter-

  locutors. If we know for sure, or later find out, that Paula isn’t

  pregnant, our opinion of Bill as a competent and diligent source

  c ir c ul a r r e p o r t in g 171

  of information decreases. But it decreases less if he hedged his

  statement (“Someone told me that Paula is pregnant”) than if

  he took full responsibility (“Paula is pregnant”).7

  Conversely, Bill might want to get more credit than he de-

  serves for an idea by obscuring its actual source.8 If he tel s you,

  “I think Paula is pregnant,” and you knew that Paula wasn’t preg-

  nant three months ago, you might attribute to him the ability to

  recognize early pregnancy based on subtle cues, and maybe some

  more general social skil s. But if he tel s you, “Paula told me that

  she’s pregnant,” he won’t get much credit: he just had to listen

  to what Paula was saying.9

  Two Degrees of Separation

  Providing information about sources serves two broad functions:

  to convince our interlocutors, and to engage in reputation man-

  agement (i.e., to take more credit than warranted or, on the

  contrary, to limit our exposure to reputational fallouts). The in-

  terplay of these goals helps explain inaccurate sourcing and its

  effects.

  Take the sources that often accompanied the rumeur d’Orléans

  (“A friend’s father is a cop . . . ,” etc.). Why did speakers provide

  such sources? And why did their interlocutors accept them?

  For those who provide them, these sources play a dual role:

  to increase credibility, and to limit exposure if their interlocutor

  questions the validity of the rumor. However, it seems as if this

  second goal contradicts the thesis I have defended in the last

  chapter, namely, that people spread rumors mostly so that they

  can score social points: How could they both not be exposed if

  things go wrong (the rumor is rejected), and get credit if things

  go well (the rumor is accepted)? Those who spread rumors can

  achieve this apparently impossible feat because the value of such

  172 ch ap t er 11

  wild rumors isn’t so much in the practical implications of their

  content as in being something people want to hear about— a

  type of mind candy. So someone who transmits the rumor can

  manage both to keep their distance from the content (they don’t

  say they have witnessed anything themselves) and to get credit

  for giving their interlocutors a gift they can use to score social

  points in turn.

  From the speakers’ point of view, an external, somewhat cred-

  ible source hits a sweet spot as a way of increasing plausibility,

  decreasing exposure, and improving the overall credit they can

  obtain from spreading the rumor.

  We see the same pattern in the spread of diff er ent types of false

  information. In the 1980s a fear formed in the United States that

  snuff movies (movies depicting actual murders, torture, or rape)

  were being regularly shot and widely distributed. Nearly all the

  people who spread these accusations remained at least one step

  removed from any actual witnesses: they had never seen a snuff

  movie themselves, but they knew someone who had.10

  Similarly, advocates of conspiracy theories rarely rely on first-

  hand knowledge. Few people claim to have witnessed the

  shooting by Stanley Kubrick of the fake moon landing, or to

  know the guy who actually killed JFK. Not even David Icke says

  he has seen with his own eyes the human- reptilian beings that

  control the earth. Instead, he claims to have “started coming

  across people who told [him] they had seen people change into

  a non- human form.”11

  Hidden Dependencies

  Before launching the second Iraq War in 2003, the administra-

  tion of President George W. Bush engaged in a vast program of

  justification. One of its key arguments, used by Bush as well as

  c ir c ul a r r e p o r t in g 173

  by high- ranking officials such as Condoleezza Rice and Colin

  Powell, was that the Iraqis had attempted to buy “significant

  quantities of uranium from Africa.”12 Several intel igence agen-

  cies, across at least two countries— the United States and the

  United Kingdom— said they had documents in their possession

  proving Saddam Hussein’s attempt to buy from Niger hundreds

  of tons of uranium oxide, a material that can be pro cessed and

  used to build nuclear weapons. This convergence of reliable

  sources— the Central Intel igence Agency (CIA), the Defense

  Intelligence Agency (DIA), the UK intelligence services—

  allowed these accusations to play a central role in the justifica-

  tion for the war.

  In fact, the evidence all rested on documents peddled by a

  former Italian spy to several intel igence agencies. The concor-

  dance between the agencies’ assessment was only as good as this

  set of documents. And the documents were straight-up forger-

  ies. Not only had Hussein not attempted to buy uranium from

  anybody, but he had given up on his nuclear weapons program

  more than ten years earlier, in 1991.

  These forged documents wreaked such havoc in part because

  of the White House’s eagerness to justify the war, but also because

  the intel igence agencies failed to disclose their sources. The Brit-

  ish agencies in par tic u lar played an impor tant role, as they were

  seen as providing more in de pen dent evide
nce than the vari ous

  American agencies. But they never revealed to their U.S. col-

  leagues the basis for their accusations, depriving them of the

  ability to work out that all the evidence came from the same set

  of documents. As a U.S. intel igence official quoted by the Los

  Angeles Times put it: “This became a classic case of circular re-

  porting. It seemed like we were hearing it from lots of places.

  People didn’t realize it was the same bad information coming in

  diff er ent doors.”13

  174 ch ap t er 11

  Let’s forget for a minute the documents were forgeries, as this

  is not the aspect of the story I’m interested in here. If the docu-

  ments were real, for each individual agency, disclosing the source

  would make its case more convincing. However, given that all

  the agencies relied on the same source, their case was more con-

  vincing when the sources weren’t disclosed and their opinions

  were thought to have been formed in de pen dently of each other.

  As explained in chapter 5, a convergence of opinions is a reliable

  indicator of the opinions’ validity only to the extent that the opin-

  ions have been formed in de pen dently of each other. If they all

  rely on the same source, they are only as strong as the one

  source.14 In this case, the combined agencies’ case would have

  actually been less convincing had they disclosed their sources—

  even though doing so would have made each individual case

  seem more convincing.

  When the agencies failed to reveal their sources, there was a

  hidden de pen dency between their opinions. Such hidden depen-

  dencies are a particularly tricky prob lem for our mechanisms of

  open vigilance. For each informant— here, an intelligence

  agency, but the same applies to any other case— their statements

  are made less convincing by the absence of a source. As a result,

  our mechanisms of open vigilance have no reason to be on the

  alert: they are on the lookout for attempts to change our mind,

  not attempts not to change it. When someone fails to mention

  a source that would make their statement more convincing,

  we’re not particularly vigilant. If many people do the same

  thing, we might end up accepting all of their statements, with-

  out realizing they all stem from the same source, ending up

  more convinced than we should be. Not identifying hidden

  dependencies is one of the rare failures of open vigilance mech-

 

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