Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Hindsight blindness

Following recent dire assessments regarding the Iraq war, some who opposed the invasion apparently are now delighting in telling supporters of the war, “I told you so...”

But the Washington Post’s Shankar Vedantam argues that it “isn’t quite true” that opponents of the war knew it would all end in tears. Rather, he attributes this anti-war ‘triumphalism’ to a phenomenon known as hindsight bias.

Citing some academics in support, Vedantam observes: “The hindsight bias plays an important role in public debate, because it gives people a false sense of certainty. When people convince themselves that they knew something would happen, what they effectively ignore is how much that outcome may have been unpredictable.”

While some in the pro-war camp have welcomed Vedantam’s supposed debunking of anti-war triumphalists, the implications of the discussion of predictions and outcomes will most likely elude them. I predict that they will effectively ignore that, whereas opponents of the war perhaps weren’t as right as they think they were, the war’s supporters were much less right than even were the ‘naysayers’.

If the present disastrous outcome could not have been entirely predicted, then what does that say about predictions of a quick and easy victory, with flowers strewn before the invading armoured personnel carriers, and the establishment of LA in Mesopotamia?

Will the pro-war mob modify their own assumptions and biases?

Is Bismarck a herring?

2 Comments:

Blogger Glenn Condell said...

I wish I could prove (even to myself) just how prescient (or otherwise) I was in late 01 thru early 03, but I can't for the life of me find anything on Google that goes back further than 04.

Maybe they've wiped a few years of net-talk off the archives so that we are unable to supply such proof. Nah, it's more likely stuff-up than conspiracy.

Even so, I clearly recall telling assorted wingnuts during that time that I'd see them in a few years to discuss how our various world views were shaping up. Now I can't remember which wingnuts they were (they all look, or rather sound the same after a while)

Good to see you have a blog Jacob. Every sane addition to the menagerie helps.

4/10/06 10:21 AM  
Blogger Jacob A. Stam said...

Cheers Glenn.

Re the Iraq 'intervention', like many I was very wary and sceptical of the propaganda avalanche. But beyond all that, I was concerned that the headlong rush into this misadventure would result in many unwanted consequences, and of course in 'disproportionate' civilian losses.

Not that I have any more idea than anyone else of what 'proportionate' losses would or should look like. It's just that I was appalled, and continue to be, by the wickedness of playing with people's lives in circumstances so inimical to rational and humane decision-making.

4/10/06 2:09 PM  

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