Sleeper Effect, Whataboutism, and Risk in Unreliable Sources

Once upon a time, I had a copy of an Eisner Award-winning book that presented a history of the early comic book industry. The first time I glanced in it, though, I saw factual errors. The author reported having many sources but had no footnotes and did not indicate sources for those specific bits of information. Later, I opened the book again to see how it recognized Bob Kane's ghostwriter Bill Finger's importance as the then-uncredited co-creator of Batman. Back in 1939, he had taken his vague "Bat-Man" concept to Finger for helping fleshing it out before Kane signed the contract that would license this creation to the company that would become DC Comics. Finger then named the character's city and secret identity, completely changed the colors and costume, and added the details that originally defined the Dark Knight, and yet he would not receive official recognition as co-creator until 2015.

The aforementioned Eisner winner, though, indicated that Kane was still considering bird-related names until Finger apparently suggested, "What about 'the Bat-Man'?" While no scholar of that history would be surprised to discover after all this time that Kane had lifted that exact name from somebody else (as I've mentioned elsewhere), both Kane and Finger explicitly said that Kane had already named Bat-Man before he even mentioned it to Finger. No other source I've ever seen has shown otherwise, so I emailed the author to ask about his source. Months later, he replied (and I still have that email) to say, "Yes, I was being purposely cagey in that speculative Bob and Bill dialogue. Probably too clever for my own good, actually, since many people have read it as an assertion that Finger came up with the name."

So what? How much does it matter that one author worded things in deliberately "cagey" ways and made outright errors in each sample I checked in his book about people who had mostly died long ago? It meant I did not trust him (long before he went to prison for possession of child pornography) and I chose not to continue reading that book. Along those lines, when later reading a book about the psychologist who created Wonder Woman, I stopped reading after 18 pages despite the fact that it actually provided plenty of endnotes that tied its statements to specific sources. Reading through those endnotes, I saw contradictions and indicators that statements presented as plain fact in the chapters' main text were actually just assumptions on its author's part.

The issues come up again with a recent biography about one of the most famous comics creators in the world (the second biographical book since his death), a book that the departed creator's protégé Roy Thomas has critically dissected and lambasted as "often untrustworthy" for pushing a biased perspective: "He'd have been better advised—well, maybe not in terms of book sales but in the interests of historical integrity—to have confined such ill-considered judgments to his wastebasket and let the facts he's gathered simply speak for themselves. He doesn't do that nearly often enough." That is one opinion from someone who may be credible due to firsthand knowledge or may be biased due to the personal connection (while others have also weighed in with both pros and cons) - by itself, not necessarily enough to reject the book out of hand, but it raises the issue of when we should or should not risk reading any particular biography.

Why not read these books anyway? Is it fair to judge any book after reading such a small portion of it? How can anybody truly evaluate a book without reading it all the way through? Doesn't every book have its errors and every author a personal point of view? Where's the risk?

There are risks. Those are not books sold as novels, presented as fiction with stories that may improve after continuing to read. A biography should be the best effort at establishing accurate and preferably objective facts of what happened in a person's life. Truth matters. Admittedly, a person could approach a nonfiction book of questionable veracity with a big grain of salt. As if using a wiki article to help guide a hunt for sources, researchers writing about any history ought to read the footnotes or endnotes and double-check sources before relying on them for their own related work, but does the average reader really read all the notes and check sources?

Referring to the fact that other sources have errors does not logically make a current source's errors acceptable. It is not quite a tu quoque ("you too") form of ad hominen fallacy, although it would be if one biographer were saying that to the other ("Instead of looking at my errors, let's look at yours"). It does certainly fall in the realm of what has come to be known as whataboutism, a broader term (that would include tu quoque arguments) for distracting from criticism of one person, organization, or idea by diverting attention to someone else's shortcomings without addressing the original issue at all.

Saboteurs (1945).

Source: National Museum of Denmark/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

Even persons who know about credibility concerns and know to approach such a book with caution have an additional reason to be wary of letting any of its content creep into their heads: the sleeper effect. A sleeper agent is a type of secret agent remaining inactive for a long period while establishing a secure cover identity such as by building a career in America for years before being called upon (if ever) to engage in spy activities. They have taken place in the target country on the agreement that they stay ready to commit espionage and sedition when activated for spy duty, as depicted in the television series The Americans starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys for six seasons. Named for such agents, the sleeper effect occurs when we are exposed to information that we initially believe comes from an unreliable source and yet, over time, we forget where it came from and come to accept and believe the information anyway, perhaps even repeating it to others at times when we no longer recall that we distrusted the source (Cook & Flay, 1978; Hovland & Weiss, 1951). The phenomenon has been widely studied (see meta-analysis by Kumkale & Albarracin, 2004), though not as easily replicated as other effects that do not appear to depend on as many different variables or precise condition (Pratkanis et al., 1988).

Inconsistencies in findings about the sleeper effect may mean people do not usually have to worry about it, but consider this: Do you remember where every bit of trivia you've ever heard or read came from? This may be especially risky when considering some of the topics you, perhaps ironically, know best. After reading six articles about the same celebrity, including one article from a tabloid you utterly distrust and yet you read it anyway while killing time waiting for an appointment, do you later remember which of the six included the urban legends about giant alligators in the sewers? Will the average reader, who did not email the book author about what was, by his own admission, a "cagey" indication that the ghostwriter suggested the name "Bat-Man" for that new superhero, eventually repeat that as fact without remembering the cagey wording?

How many errors, misstatements, misrepresentations, or unsupported claims must a person make before most people begin to question whether any claim from that source can be taken at face value? That, of course, is a much larger concern in this world, one that applies to many more issues than simply reading a biography.

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