Bias, by any other name, still blinds you to the facts

A question for you: during the flood emergency, which leader wasted valuable time on useless staged photo-ops, seeking political benefit rather than trying to combat the disaster?

Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra (right) politely listens to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. The two were at the Department of Drainage and Sewerage in Bangkok on Nov 4, for a briefing on floodwater drainage plans.

A) Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, or

B) Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra.

Now that the floods are beginning to recede and _ hopefully _ tempers to ease, we should be able to have the discussion.

Currently, politics in Thailand and in the United States are highly polarised, even vicious. That condition is made worse by what behavioural scientists call "my-side bias". 

Part of this phenomenon should be familiar to any follower of Manchester United, Liverpool or any of the great Premier League clubs, the strong will for "my side" to win and the despair and rationalisation if it does not.

But, my-side bias goes well beyond just rooting for your team. It is all too human to seize on information or reject it depending on how it fits into your preconceived notions. 

The bias has long been with us. At the same time Siddhartha Gautama was developing Buddhist teachings, the Greek historian Thucydides observed that "it is a habit of mankind... to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy".

Since the 1960s, scientists have demonstrated that virtually everyone has a bias for facts confirming their existing beliefs and against any contrary evidence. 

In financial circles, this is called "confirmation bias". Pessimists who are convinced that the end is near counsel you to buy gold. Optimists say now is the time to get into the next big boom. 

Neither has much interest in the data cited by the other. Confirmation bias only makes individual investors go broke.

But, in politics, my-side bias can sunder entire societies. Not everyone is biased to the same degree, but science has shown that we all work with some bias and, as among many in the US and Thailand, that bias now appears to be growing more extreme.

In the US, some 45% of Republicans believe that Barack Obama (a Democrat) was born overseas and thus ineligible to be president. This isn't for want of information. The press has reported extensively on the issue, pointing to contemporary birth notices in Hawaiian newspapers and to his birth certificate, now available online.

But facts don't matter to the "birthers". It is just that they don't like Mr Obama (as a Democrat, as an African American, as a liberal, etc) and they are not prepared to listen to any positive information.

Though there are many important principles in play in Thai politics, earlier pronouncements on yellow-shirt TV and later speeches from red-shirt stages also were also littered with untruths every bit as ridiculous as Mr Obama being a foreigner in his own country.

Yet, both yellow and red propaganda was eagerly lapped up by people prepared to believe anything about those they opposed.

My-side bias can lead people to very ugly actions. During Republican presidential debates, the audience _ opposed to Mr Obama's healthcare reforms _ cheered the prospect that a person who fell ill without insurance should be left to die.

Texas Governor Rick Perry received a wild round of applause when a questioner pointed out he had authorised a record number of executions and that some of the prisoners might have been innocent. 

When a gay soldier called in a question from an Iraq war zone, many in the audience booed. Fortunately, a few tried to shush the booers.

I would hope that the same reaction would greet those who brazenly claim that Thai soldiers who spend their days in the water trying to help their fellow citizens solely as a cynical bid for power.

My-side bias has little to do with intelligence. Indeed, experiments in the US show that those endowed with agile brains can be just as stubbornly blind to facts. 

Witness the continuing denial of global warming among groups of stubborn scientists despite masses of evidence (2001-2010 was the hottest decade on record, followed by 1991-2000). 

Theses scientists discount or ignore data that contradicts their existing belief and eagerly embrace any information that supports their view (a few of the world's glaciers may be expanding, data is conflicting on ocean temperatures and the like.)

And thus it is in Thailand. Scholars and experts have written in these pages advancing A) as the answer to the question I posed above. 

Others have written just as firmly in support of B). Particularly amusing are Thai analysts who have written from abroad offering purportedly authoritative analyses of what is going on here.

 Most have obviously picked "facts" they want to believe from like-minded friends or on Facebook, and have ignored everything contrary to their belief.

And now to the answer, who was just posing and who was effective during the crisis?

The answer is that any leader is elected to lead. Part of leadership is coordinating as effectively as possible the many different agencies and bureaucrats who each have their own agendas. Part of leadership is getting reliable information to the public so people can make their own best decisions.

But, part of leadership is also motivating the public and the workers who toil at the necessary tasks. An army does not hire a general to fire a gun, but to plan and to coordinate and motivate the troops. Similarly, a society doesn't elect a leader to really fill sandbags or to cook for those in distress.

So, from the same set of facts, Thais can passionately argue both sides of the question: one leader was doing their best in hard circumstances and the other was grandstanding.

The real answer should come from a sober analysis of effective leadership, of coordinating agencies and assuring accurate information. "I don't like his/her look or his/her background" should not be part of it.

But, as humans, many of us will chose sides. The simple truth is that people feel before they think. If those feelings are strong enough, they will happily set facts aside and carry on with their heart, not their head.

To turn down the political volume in Thailand and in the United States, let me propose a maxim for each of us:Try not to trust everything you believe.