Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas

Good question. And applies to this wiki very much.

http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/essay40.htm

Quotes from the essay:

Short of obtaining a degree in logic, or studying the nuances of debate, remember this one simple rule for defusing those who are skilled at defending bad ideas: Simply because they cannot be proven wrong, does not make them right. Most of the tricks of logic and debate refute questions and attacks, but fail to establish any true justification for a given idea.

[...], when it comes to defusing smart people who are defending bad ideas, you have to find ways to slow things down. The reason for this is simple. Smart people, or at least those whose brains have good first gears, use their speed in thought to overpower others. They’ll jump between assumptions quickly, throwing out jargon, bits of logic, or rules of thumb at a rate of fire fast enough to cause most people to become rattled, and give in. When that doesn’t work, the arrogant or the pompous will throw in some belittlement and use whatever snide or manipulative tactics they have at their disposal to further discourage you from dissecting their ideas.

(sounds familiar, or?)

But note: The question is not really answered in the essay.

There are plenty of reasons WhySmartPeopleDefendBadIdeas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance (people are uncomfortable with clashing beliefs)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias (people can ignore stuff that contradicts what they want to be true)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disconfirmation_bias (people can overly criticize that contradicts what they want to be true)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expectancy_effect (people see patterns in support of their ideas where nothing actually exists)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion (people have asymmetric risk profiles)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias (people like to stick with what they know)

One outcome of this is that rational argument is often not very effective in changing people's minds, unless they're very close to swinging to the new opinion anyway (OnlySayThingsThatCanBeHeard). Many (most?) beliefs do not rest on rational, examinable, easily-changeable foundations. This is a particular problem with disputes about technology, which are superficially about precise, quantifiable issues but so often boil down to preferences and vague hunches: methodology wars are an example most of us have encountered here.

What to do if debate and reasoned argument fails? One option: use reality as a lever. If people's beliefs are far enough out of line, arrange things so that the disparity between their beliefs and the truth works in your favour, in as forceful and rapid a manner as possible. If they are genuinely wrong, then TheRealWorld? will correct them with all the subtlety of a brick wall.

Here's a concrete example: if team A want to rewrite library M in language X, and it seems to you it will never work, and reasoned argument fails to make an impression, then it can be worthwhile not prolonging a useless argument. Let them go ahead, and re-open the debate when the impact of reality becomes more obvious. If they succeed, well - maybe you were wrong! If they fail, maybe they'll try again, but maybe they'll listen to reason. Eventually they'll have to come round because, well, brute fact has given them ParkingLotTherapy sufficiently many times.

Sometimes there are stakes greater than you wish to risk with such tactics - like if Team A fails to get a working version of library M< the company will fold, and you'll be out of work in a poor job market

That's a very fair comment. But what are the alternatives? I've been in such a company. And I argued the case for ages. And the MD didn't listen. And they failed. With the benefit of hindsight, I should have put my energies towards helping a tryout of the "wrong approach" in a controlled fashion instead. I have used this tactic in other situations subsequently, with some success: sometimes a concrete example succeeds where hours of abstract debate fails:

 * (me) "I don't think we should do X, we should do Y, because ..."
 * (manager) "No - you *must* do Y, because ..."
 * ... pointless back-and-forth elided ...
 * (me) "OK. I'll do Y. But I bet you *this* will happen, and we'll regret it."
 * (manager) "We'll see."
 * ... I go off and do Y, keeping manager appraised of progress ...
 * ... the predicted Bad Thing begins to happen ...
 * (me) "Shall I stop doing Y, and do X then?"
 * (manager) "Yeah. Fair enough."

If you really need to change minds quicker than mean-time-to-failure, try to ensure reality kicks in sooner rather than later, rather than relying on pure, sweet reason to do the trick for you. This isn't so much standing aside, as trying to help reality do the persuading for you.

BackLinks wanted :-)

I suggest rename to "ItsaCaseOfSmartPeopleDefendingBadIdeas" to make it more BackLink friendly :) -- dl

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