Verified by 
What does it mean to be intellectually honest?
In a world awash in propaganda, at a time when style matters more than substance, intellectual honesty has never been more important.
Why?
Because each instance of intellectual dishonesty tears the social fabric of our civilization, allowing our worst human id impulses to perpetuate a cycle of violence against each other. The problems we face at this moment in history can only be solved by a cooperative effort of people from different walks of life, seeing different sides of the cube, who trust each other's intentions. That trust is built on the foundation of intellectual honesty.
Intellectual honesty is the lifeblood of many professions, but especially psychology. Accordingly, I believe intellectual honesty reflects one's commitment to pursue truth while resisting it's two most insidious enemies: propaganda and logical fallacies.
While there are many definitions of propaganda, for the purposes of this article I have integrated a definition from the Oxford English Dictionary with connotations of the word used by my colleagues in psychology, media, and philosophy. As such, I believe propaganda to be any commentary on a particular issue or event with the following three components:
- An attempt to persuade - either explicitly or implicitly;
- The omission of information that would provide important context to the issue/event in question (especially historical context); and
- The omission of equally potent information from alternative perspectives.
Propaganda, however, is not the only component of intellectual dishonesty. Rather, propaganda can be thought of as the hub of the wheel, with spokes of logical fallacies emanating out from its center. Logical fallacies are errors in thinking that yield faulty conclusions. Sometimes logical fallacies are the result of ignorance, but many times they are used purposefully by propagandists to manipulate people into reaching the conclusions they intend.
While there are literally dozens, if not hundreds of logical fallacies, the ones that are most commonly used in debates are:
The Ad Hominem Fallacy: Translated from Latin, meaning "to the person," the ad hominem fallacy is when you evaluate an argument according to the reputation of the person making that argument, rather than the validity of the argument itself.
Typically, this fallacy is used to discredit an argument by attacking the speaker as one who lacks credibility, and when used in this way it is called an ad hominem attack (e.g., "Pete is obese, so whatever he has to say about health and nutrition must obviously be nonsense.").
Sometimes, however, the ad hominem fallacy is used in a positive way, whereby an argument is assumed valid simply because it was made by a person deemed to be an "expert" in a particular field, even though the argument itself was never verified as being true (e.g., "Dr. Oz is a famous cardiothoracic surgeon and therefore if he says that GMO foods are unhealthy, they must be unhealthy."). When the ad hominem fallacy is used in a positive way, validating the claims of an "expert," philosophers sometimes refer to it as a separate fallacy known as the argument from authority.
How to Avoid the Ad Hominem Fallacy: Judge each argument on its own merits, regardless of the person making it. Remember, 2+2 still equals 4, even when spoken by a proven liar. Conversely, even the world's most respected scientists have made mistakes from time to time, which is why the scientific community requires a research finding to be replicated many times, by different researchers, before a consensus about its validity is reached.
The Cherry-Picking Fallacy: This technique involves the careful selection of information that supports an argument being advanced with the omission of information opposing that argument. A common variant of the cherry-picking fallacy is the straw man fallacy. This is a more subtle and insidious technique, whereby someone appears to be presenting evidence on both sides of an argument, however, the evidence presented against the argument is much weaker (i.e., like a man made of straw) than the evidence presented in favor of the argument. This is often done to give the illusion of being fair and balanced in a debate when the true intention is to advance propaganda.
How to Avoid the Cherry Picking Fallacy: Present an argument that includes the best available supporting evidence in favor of the argument, together with the best available evidence opposing the argument, and let the audience decide which is most valid.
The Post Hoc Fallacy: Translated from Latin, post hoc means "after this" and it refers to the practice of defining your hypotheses and intentions after seeing the results. That's cheating because, as we all know, hindsight is 20/20. In science, researchers are generally required to state their research goals and hypotheses in advance, then conduct their experiments, and then draw the appropriate conclusions based on an honest assessment of the data.
The post hoc fallacy is deployed in many different ways: in science, politics and all forms of interpersonal conflict. At the heart of this intellectually dishonest tactic is when a person decides in advance what want to be true (usually because it confoms to their agenda) and then looks exclusively for confirmatory evidence, without concern for how valid (or invalid) that evidence may be. In contrast, an intellectually honest approach would be to embark on an open and honest investigation into whatever question is of interest, and then follow the data where they lead, even if the data disconfirm their beliefs.
How to Avoid the Post Hoc Rationalization: Define in advance the criteria you will use to evaluate success in a given endeavor, and then evaluate the results of your analyses according to those original criteria.
-----
Intellectual honesty is more important now than ever before. To be intellectually honest means that you not only resist spreading your own propaganda using logical fallacies, but also that you resist being used by political organizations, media outlets, and conspiracy theorists as they try to spread their propaganda through you for the benefit of their dangerous ends justify the means consequentialism.
Today we are mired in an epistemological crisis, a struggle to define knowledge itself, and the flames of this crisis have been fanned by the very same news outlets and political organizations (on both the left and the right) that we've trusted to inform us, without bias.
Though you probably won't believe it, the very sources of news that you trust most are responsible for spreading their propaganda through you, accessing your mind through your rectangles. Of course, if you're like most people you probably believe that your favorite news outlets are not the problem, it's the media on the other side that's trading in propaganda and logical fallacies. Well, if you're so confident in the intellectual honesty of your news sources, I challenge you to evaluate the news you consume using the criteria above defining propaganda and logical fallacies. Heck, you may even find in reading other articles that I have posted, here on this site, that I might not have always met the standard of intellectual honesty to your liking. However, I would rather you train yourself to be a more sensitive gauge of intellectual dishonesty and reject my claims (along with most others) than let countless instances of intellectual dishonesty go unchecked.
Why are we so eager to keep ourselves in a bubble that requires continued inflation with propaganda and logical fallacies? Because it seems to be that human nature, as supported by my work as a psychologist, pushes us to avoid change at all costs, especially when that change is forced on to us by others. Changing one's beliefs requires the unsettling psychological work of assimilation and accommodation, according to the renowned developmental psychologist Jean Piaget.
Winston Churchill is often given credit with the observation that "Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else." Interestingly, there is scant evidence that Churchill actually said this, though the witty line continues to get attributed to him, and I have even mistakenly attributed this to him myself (including in a previous version of this article). Whether or not these sentiments belong to Churchill, they speak to a phenomenon - not just about Americans, but to all of humanity - that resonates with many people: that we are all resistant to doing the right thing until we have to.
In conclusion, if we are to rise to the occasion that this moment requires, we need to 'do the right thing' and become as intellectually honest as possible: resisting propaganda; avoiding logical fallacies; and correcting our mistakes. If we can do that, we might not resolve all of our differences, but at least we will be able to achieve mutual respect among those with whom we disagree.
