Musings on the "Naomi Klein Problem"

Naomi Klein has no formal training in social science. She writes books that have a superficial weightiness, but when examined more critically are found to present illogical theories supported by stories that she interprets without complying with any obvious rules of empirical research. Moreover, her theses often borrow liberally from existing social science research, which she twists to advance her normative agenda. To be blunt, I doubt that any chapter of any of her books would receive a passing grade in any graduate seminar I have ever led or taken. (I remain undecided about what grade I would give her writing in an undergraduate POLI class). Her books become best sellers, she is invited to speak to large audiences, and appears as a guest on talking head TV.

Klein, of course, is symbolic of a broader phenomenon in which people who lack social science training write books that pretend to be serious but aren't really. The arguments thus made then shape public discussion and debate. If you don't like my focus on Naomi Klein, then substitute Thomas Friedman or David Brooks or Robert Kaplan, or Amy Chua, or your own least favorite such writer. They are all the same.

There are (at least) two dimensions to this phenomenon that I don't understand. First, I do not understand why the media turns to non-experts to expound on "global issues." I can think of about 100 people more qualified to expound on the relationship between crisis and reform than Naomi Klein. So, why does the media select the least qualified person? I suspect the answer lies in some combination of having a PR person to issue press releases, I publisher willing to cover expenses to support a recent book, and a media that needs to fill air time. In other words, finding Naomi Klein is easy; finding Alan Drazen and Alberto Alesina is not.

Second, I do not understand why social scientists have ceded this ground to Naomi Klein. That we have ceded this ground is obvious. Sam Huntington, and perhaps, though to a lesser extent Robert Putnam, are the only top-flight political scientists who target a significant portion of their writing to a broad public audience. The rest of us conduct research and write monographs tailored to narrow professional audiences. My point is not to diminish the importance of such research, but to question our unwillingness to communicate our findings beyond a narrow professional community. Because social scientists have ceded this ground, Naomi Klein is the most eager person available. So, the media talks to Naomi.

All of this matters because it produces low quality public debate. "Morrissey", in a comment on an earlier post, proposed the "marketplace of ideas" as a solution to my skepticism about how we can believe what we believe when we try to extract meaningful information from all of the noise. Yet, if the marketplace of ideas is to resolve this problem at least some of the ideas being debated must be supported by logic and systematic empirical evidence. The ideas that emerge are those that have withstood serious scrutiny. Yet, because those who shape the debate too often have a political agenda and lack training in principles of scientific research and deep knowledge of the topic, while those who have this training and knowledge show little interest in shaping the public debate, the marketplace of ideas can't solve the problem.

How do We Extract Signal from Noise?

As we head toward the New Year, I offer some fundamental skepticism. In a very cheery examination of the current financial situation, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard seems almost to relish the collapse of the international financial system. He seems uncannily able to find bankers willing to make extreme statements, such as: "Things are very unstable and can move incredibly fast. I don't think the central banks are going to make a major policy error, but if they do, this could make 1929 look like a walk in the park." How's that for a little New Year cheer?

I feature Evans-Pritchard's recent work because it nicely highlights one of two questions I have been pondering for the last two weeks (I will post on the second question tomorrow). How do we humans extract meaningful signal from all the noise? We seem strongly attracted to worse-case scenarios; we compare the current situation to 1929 rather than to other financial episodes that did not produce a global cataclysm (1987, for example, or the bursting of the dot com bubble). The media feeds us quotes with no evidence about where the people quoted fall in the distribution of opinion and analysis. Are the quoted bankers representative of the median view, or is the writer drawing from the gloom-and-doom end of the spectrum? Do the people quoted have incentive (monetary or other) to portray events in a particular manner rather than present "objective analysis?" In short, how does one figure out the "truth" in a world in which the critical question is "what is going to happen?", when the information we have at hand is of uncertain quality and quite possibly biased, but the degree of bias is unknown (and unknowable)?

This seems to be a very hard problem, and yet one we face on a regular basis. For those not interested in the current financial crisis, then ask the same question of global warming. If you are unwilling to fall down the global warming warren hole (and having disappeared into that hole for a full week, I can hardly blame you if you are not), then ask the question of genetically modified organisms. If GMOs do not interest you, then what about economic development? All of these issues pose the same dilemma: we are asked to make decisions today to achieve some future consequence relying on knowledge first produced and then reported by groups of people who may or may not be motivated by the objective quest for truth and that therefore may or may not be biased in ways we cannot accurately measure.

In short, why do we believe what we believe, and should we? How do we extract the meaningful signal from all of the noise, and how do we know that we have extracted the meaningful signal? I don't have the answer, but we seem to believe that the political process is good at selecting the "correct signal." Why do we believe this? Should we?