Dude, Where’s My Null Hypothesis?

WWJD?

The indisputable evidence box was a conceptual mind-exercise I came up with a while back to test one’s ability to maintain justifiable skepticism. It’s like a pregnancy test for logic, except you don’t have to pee on anything.

In a nutshell, the test is to imagine a set of hypothetical evidence that is so overwhelmingly AGAINST your own belief system that you’d have no choice but to accept that you are undeniably wrong. The question is then: presented with this indisputable evidence box, would you abandon your beliefs?

I like this exercise because it’s naturally polarizing. For those with a strong scientific background, it’s a layup; the scientific method flourishes in this sort of situation where new evidence presents itself against a commonly accepted theory. But when the user’s response is fuddled, ambiguous, or even hostile toward the test, it’s quite clear that skepticism and rationality are not frequently-used tools in their personal bag of tricks.

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Arguing Over Dinner

The indisputable evidence box is a good opener for any of your standard family holiday dinner discussions. When the conversation turns to hot topics like evolution, global warming, vaccinations, or any flavor of conspiracy theory, test your opposition’s IEB reflex before you waste your breath on a fruitless debate. After all, there’s nothing like arguing with someone who is too stubborn or irrational to accept that they might be wrong.

The exercise, in effect, is a test for the user’s null hypothesis comprehension. The null hypothesis is quite simply a hypothesis that can be disproven. For example, if you strongly believe “X has an effect on Y”, you should also probably check to make sure “X does not have an effect on Y”.

Googlegate

Conspiracy theorists often have a difficult time with this concept, where frequently a null hypothesis is conveniently absent. Recently, there was a very passionate and vocal pitchfork army who attacked the Google Web Search forum with allegations that Google was censoring the term “climategate” from its auto-suggest feature. The “Googlegate” theorists alleged that Google, a somewhat liberal and active believer in global warming, wanted to suppress the term from the Internet in order to promote its own political agenda.

"Al-Gore-ithm" seems to be working now

The official response from Google employees on the matter echoed that of many other rational bystanders – that the term was relatively new and that “it’s totally normal for a suggestion to take time to appear consistently in [the] query suggestions”. Sure enough, the term did indeed eventually appear in the auto-suggest box, but not without the conspiracy theorists’ canned “we caught you and you caved” cackle.

So we have two scenarios here. Either the algorithm operated exactly as it was supposed to — reacting to search query popularity and trending to provide a shortcut search string.

Or the following occurred: Google CEOs sat around a table discussing the recent “climategate” debacle. They closed the shades, and after heated debate decided the only option was the immediate and ongoing censorship of the term “climategate” from the auto-suggest algorithm. Nevermind the already existing auto-suggestions for “global warming” like “global warming hoax” or “global warming myth” — the best way to influence the public opinion right now is to not assist a user in finishing their search string. Yes. A perfectly subtle and effective solution. And get Bing.com on the phone — we’re going to collaborate this with them as well!

– Days later –

Blast! These people are more clever than we thought. They’ve noticed that “climategate” isn’t appearing. Hrmmm… alright. You win this round! Johnson! Uncensor the damn Internet!

I always wonder what these types of people would do with an IEB. Even with only a dumbed down “really overwhelming” evidence box, could there ever be enough evidence to convince them that their conspiracy theories are nothing but a warped, confirmation-bias laced crock of fiction?

Or maybe I’m just part of the conspiracy and I want them to think that.