Controversy

==Psychological bases==
Controversies are frequently thought to be a result of a lack of confidence on the part of the disputants – as implied by [[Gregory Benford#Benford's law of controversy|Benford's law of controversy]], which only talks about lack of information ("passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available"). For example, in analyses of the political controversy over [[anthropogenic climate change]], which is exceptionally virulent in the [[United States]], it has been proposed that those who are opposed to the scientific consensus do so because they don't have enough information about the topic.<ref>{{Cite journal| volume = 9| issue = 3| pages = 297–312| last = Ungar| first = S.| s2cid = 7089937| title = Knowledge, ignorance and the popular culture: climate change versus the ozone hole| journal = Public Understanding of Science| year = 2000 | doi = 10.1088/0963-6625/9/3/306}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal| volume = 1| issue = 1| pages = 35–41| last = Pidgeon| first = N.|author2=B. Fischhoff| s2cid = 85362091| title = The role of social and decision sciences in communicating uncertain climate risks| journal = Nature Climate Change| year = 2011|bibcode = 2011NatCC...1...35P |doi = 10.1038/nclimate1080 }}</ref> A study of 1540 US adults<ref>{{Cite journal| last = Kahan| first = Dan M.|author2=Maggie Wittlin |author3=Ellen Peters |author4=Paul Slovic |author5=Lisa Larrimore Ouellette |author6=Donald Braman |author7=Gregory N. Mandel | title = The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change| year = 2011| doi = 10.2139/ssrn.1871503| ssrn = 1871503|hdl=1794/22097 | s2cid = 73649608|hdl-access=free }}</ref> found instead that levels of scientific literacy correlated with the strength of [[public opinion on climate change|opinion on climate change]], but not on which side of the debate that they stood.

The puzzling phenomenon of two individuals being able to reach different conclusions after being exposed to the same facts has been frequently explained (particularly by Daniel Kahneman) by reference to a '[[bounded rationality]]' – in other words, that most judgments are made using fast acting [[heuristic]]s<ref>{{Cite journal| issn = 0002-8282| volume = 93| issue = 5| pages = 1449–1475| last = Kahneman| first = Daniel| title = Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics| journal = The American Economic Review| date = 2003-12-01| jstor = 3132137| doi = 10.1257/000282803322655392| url = http://www.econ.tuwien.ac.at/Lotto/papers/Kahneman2.pdf| citeseerx = 10.1.1.194.6554| access-date = 2017-10-24| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180219074537/http://www.econ.tuwien.ac.at/lotto/papers/Kahneman2.pdf| archive-date = 2018-02-19| url-status = dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal| volume = 185| issue = 4157| pages = 1124–31| last = Tversky| first = A.| author2 = D. Kahneman| title = Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases| journal = Science| year = 1974| bibcode = 1974Sci...185.1124T| doi = 10.1126/science.185.4157.1124| pmid = 17835457| s2cid = 143452957| url = https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD0767426| access-date = 2017-08-30| archive-date = 2018-06-01| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180601235707/http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/AD0767426| url-status = live}}</ref> that work well in every day situations, but are not amenable to decision-making about complex subjects such as climate change. [[Anchoring]] has been particularly identified as relevant in climate change controversies <ref>{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1016/j.jenvp.2010.03.004| issn = 0272-4944| volume = 30| issue = 4| pages = 358–367| last = Joireman| first = Jeff|author2=Heather Barnes Truelove |author3=Blythe Duell | title = Effect of outdoor temperature, heat primes and anchoring on belief in global warming| journal = Journal of Environmental Psychology| date = December 2010}}</ref> as individuals are found to be more positively inclined to believe in climate change if the outside temperature is higher, if they have been primed to think about heat, and if they are primed with higher temperatures when thinking about the future temperature increases from climate change.

In other controversies – such as that around the [[HPV vaccine]], the same evidence seemed to license inference to radically different conclusions.<ref>{{Cite news| issn = 0362-4331| last = Saul| first = Stephanie|author2=Andrew Pollack| title = Furor on Rush to Require Cervical Cancer Vaccine| work = The New York Times| access-date = 2011-11-26| date = 2007-02-17| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/17/health/17vaccine.html}}</ref> Kahan et al.<ref>{{Cite journal| last = Kahan| first = Dan M.|author2=Donald Braman |author3=Geoffrey L. Cohen |author-link3=Geoffrey L. Cohen|author4=Paul Slovic |author5=John Gastil | title = Who Fears the HPV Vaccine, Who Doesn't, and Why? An Experimental Study of the Mechanisms of Cultural Cognition| date = 2008-07-15 |journal=Law and Human Behavior | ssrn = 1160654}}</ref> explained this by the cognitive biases of biased assimilation<ref>{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1037/0022-3514.37.11.2098| issn = 0022-3514| volume = 37| issue = 11| pages = 2098–2109| last = Lord| first = Charles G.|author2=Lee Ross |author3=Mark R. Lepper | title = Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence.| journal = Journal of Personality and Social Psychology| year = 1979| citeseerx = 10.1.1.372.1743}}</ref> and a credibility heuristic.<ref>{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1086/266350| volume = 15| issue = 4| pages = 635–650| last = HOVLAND| first = CARL I.|author2=WALTER WEISS| title = The Influence of Source Credibility on Communication Effectiveness| journal = Public Opinion Quarterly| date = 1951-12-21}}</ref>

Similar effects on reasoning are also seen in non-scientific controversies, for example in the [[Gun politics in the United States|gun control debate in the United States]].<ref name="guncontrol">{{Cite journal| last = Braman| first = Donald|author2=James Grimmelmann |author3=Dan M. Kahan | title = Modeling Cultural Cognition |journal=Social Justice Research | date = 20 July 2007| ssrn = 1000449}}</ref> As with other controversies, it has been suggested that exposure to empirical facts would be sufficient to resolve the debate once and for all.<ref>{{Cite journal| volume = 151| issue = 4| pages = 1341–1348| last = Fremling| first = G.M.|author2=J.R. Lott Jr| title = Surprising Finding That Cultural Worldviews Don't Explain People's Views on Gun Control, The| journal = U. Pa. L. Rev.| year = 2002| doi = 10.2307/3312932| jstor = 3312932| url = https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3214&context=penn_law_review}}</ref><ref>{{Cite conference| publisher = National Bureau of Economic Research| last = Ayres| first = I.|author2=J.J. Donohue III| title = Shooting down the more guns, less crime hypothesis| year = 2002}}</ref> In computer simulations of cultural communities, beliefs were found to polarize within isolated sub-groups, based on the mistaken belief of the community's unhindered access to ground truth.<ref name="guncontrol" /> Such confidence in the group to find the ground truth is explicable through the success of [[wisdom of the crowd]] based inferences.<ref>{{Cite journal| last = Lee| first = M.D. |author2=M. Steyvers |author3=M. de Young |author4=B.J. Miller | title = A Model-Based Approach to Measuring Expertise in Ranking Tasks}}</ref> However, if there is no access to the ground truth, as there was not in this model, the method will fail.

[[Bayes estimator|Bayesian decision theory]] allows these failures of rationality to be described as part of a statistically optimized system for decision making. Experiments and computational models in [[multisensory integration]] have shown that sensory input from different senses is integrated in a statistically optimal way,<ref>{{Cite journal| issn = 0028-0836| volume = 415| issue = 6870| pages = 429–433| last = Ernst| first = Marc O.|author2=Martin S. Banks| title = Humans integrate visual and haptic information in a statistically optimal fashion| journal = Nature| date = 2002-01-24| doi = 10.1038/415429a|bibcode = 2002Natur.415..429E| pmid=11807554| s2cid = 47459}}</ref> in addition, it appears that the kind of inferences used to infer single sources for multiple sensory inputs uses a Bayesian inference about the causal origin of the sensory stimuli.<ref>{{Cite journal| volume = 8| issue = 3| pages = 24.1–11| last = Wozny| first = D.R. |author2=U.R. Beierholm |author3=L. Shams| title = Human trimodal perception follows optimal statistical inference| journal = Journal of Vision| year = 2008| doi = 10.1167/8.3.24| pmid = 18484830| doi-access = free}}</ref> As such, it appears neurobiologically plausible that the brain implements decision-making procedures that are close to optimal for Bayesian inference.

Brocas and Carrillo propose a model to make decisions based on noisy sensory inputs,<ref>{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1016/j.geb.2011.10.001| issn = 0899-8256| last = Brocas| first = Isabelle|author2=Juan D. Carrillo| title = From perception to action: An economic model of brain processes| journal = Games and Economic Behavior| volume=75| pages=81–103| year = 2012}}</ref> beliefs about the state of the world are modified by Bayesian updating, and then decisions are made based on beliefs passing a threshold. They show that this model, when optimized for single-step decision making, produces belief [[anchoring]] and polarization of opinions – exactly as described in the [[global warming controversy]] context – in spite of identical evidence presented, the pre-existing beliefs (or evidence presented first) has an overwhelming effect on the beliefs formed. In addition, the preferences of the agent (the particular rewards that they value) also cause the beliefs formed to change – this explains the biased assimilation (also known as [[confirmation bias]]) shown above. This model allows the production of controversy to be seen as a consequence of a decision maker optimized for single-step decision making, rather than a result of limited reasoning in the [[bounded rationality]] of [[Daniel Kahneman]].