THINKER'S ALMANAC - October 4

Why do the best scientists and the best thinkers seek out ways to destroy their own theories or ideas?

Subject:  Constructive Conflict - Mary Stewart’s Statistician

Event:  Birthday of Dr. Alice Mary Stewart, 1906

It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives; whereas it ought properly to hold itself indifferently disposed towards both alike. -Francis Bacon

In June 2012, Margaret Heffernan presented a TED Talk that celebrated the strategic thinking of Alice Stewart, an English epidemiologist, who was born on this day in 1906.  Stewart was a pioneer in the field of epidemiology, the science of studying patterns in disease.  The specific problem she was working on in 1956 was childhood cancers.  What she discovered was a high correlation between childhood cancer and mothers who had received X-rays during their pregnancy.  Despite the scientific soundness of her case against X-rays, the medical establishment and nuclear industry did not approve.  Not only did they not act on her findings but she also had her financing for further studies reduced.  It took twenty years for the medical establishment to end the harmful practice of prenatal X-rays.

One thinking error that all good scientists must avoid is confirmation bias, the tendency to interpret evidence in a manner that confirms what you already believe.  One way that Stewart avoided confirmation bias in her work was to establish a productive working relationship with a statistician named George Kneale.  Working together, these two applied a strategy known as constructive conflict, where Kneale’s job was to be a “no-man” rather than a “yes-man,” seeking actively to disconfirm any of the data that Stewart presented to him.  As Margeret Heffernan put it, “it was only by not being able to prove that [Stewart] was wrong, that [Kneale] could give Alice Stewart the confidence to know that she was right” (1).

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Employing a constructive conflict approach requires a commitment to counterintuitive thinking.  Instead of following our neurobiological instincts to seek out confirming evidence and to ignore disconfirming evidence, constructive conflict requires that we leave the echo chamber and seek out people who don’t think the same way as we do. Instead of the easy path that avoids conflict, we must instead seek out people with different experiences who will give us different perspectives.

In a commencement address at Harvard on June 13, 1986, American businessman and philanthropist Charlie Munger cited two other well-known scientists who understood the importance of combating confirmation bias.  Munger first praised Charles Darwin: “Darwin’s result was due in large measure to his working method, which violated all my rules for misery and particularly emphasized a backward twist in that he always gave priority attention to evidence tending to disconfirm whatever cherished and hard-won theory he already had. In contrast, most people early achieve and later intensify a tendency to process new and disconfirming information so that any original conclusion remains intact.”  

Munger’s second icon for sound reasoning was Albert Einstein, who held up self-criticism as a virtue that was just as important as curiosity, concentration, and perseverance.  According to Munger, Einstein’s genius rested on his willingness and enthusiasm for “the testing and destruction of his own well-loved ideas” (2).

To sum up, the lesson from Stewart, Darwin, and Einstein is to eschew ignorance by seeking out, facing, and using our errors as a launchpad for learning.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What were the different roles of Alice Stewart and George Kneale, and how did their constructive conflict prevent confirmation bias?

Challenge - Why Avoid the Bias?:  Do some further research on confirmation bias; then, write a short PSA on what it is and why and how it can be avoided.

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

October 4, 1957 at 7:28 PM:  The Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik I. 

Sources:

1-Heffernan, Margaret. “Dare To Disagree.” TED.com June 2012.

2-Hogg, Alec. “Simply great: Charlie Munger’s speech to the Harvard School, June 1986 – ‘Invert, always invert.’” biznews.com 13 July 1986.