In “A Matter of Trust,” I pointed out how untrustworthy people are. If you don’t possess expertise on a topic, it becomes quite challenging to know who you can trust. Yet, you must be able to trust certain people, because no one man can know everything they need to know.

Black and White Doctors

A while back, in “Imposter Syndrome,” I discussed how DEI-hire Ketanji Brown Jackson—a Justice of the United States Supreme Court—incorrectly cited a study in a way that was mathematically absurd. She had cited a particularly bad study, saying this:

At the time it was well known that the study was complete garbage, and a Supreme Court Justice should be smart and honest enough not to cite such a study. But Jackson is an idealogue on the Supreme Court and does not care (or is otherwise incapable) about such things. Here are some of the problems:

The point is, you can’t trust one of the most powerful people in the world, one of the people making life and death decisions for one of the most important countries in the world.

But it actually gets far worse than this.

That’s right, not only did the study fail to actually show that white doctors put black babies at risk, but their study actually showed that black doctors put white babies at risk!

The above quotation was originally in the paper, but was removed. Here is the explanation for the authors removing it:

Of course the study is complete garbage and you shouldn’t trust any of the results it produced, but the point was that they felt perfectly justified in redacting the study in order to service a narrative instead of the truth. And a Supreme Court Justice went along with it.

Doll Test

During one of the most famous Supreme Court cases—Brown v. Board of Education—the court cited a famous study conducted by Kenneth and Mamie Clark. They tested the children by having them selecting which of a white and black doll was “nice” or “bad.” They found that Black children showed more “internalized racism” when they were in segregated schools versus integrated schools. It was supposed to prove that segregation psychologically damaged blacks.

That is what was reported. But, like the study on black and white doctors, the actual study results told a different story.

What the study data actually showed is that children in integrated schools were more likely to prefer the white dolls and have negative perceptions of the black dolls compared to those in segregated schools. This contradicted the notion that segregation increased so-called “internalized racism.” The study showed that “racism” increased in integrated schools! By the initial reasoning of the study, this would mean that integrated schools were psychologically damaging blacks (and, presumably, whites).

Of course, it is unlikely that the choice of dolls proves or disproves racism, or that it shows psychological damage of any kind. It was a stupid study. But that didn’t prevent SCOTUS from citing it for ideological purposes or from the researchers from drawing the opposite conclusion from what the data actually suggested.

Blind Orchestra Audition

Eleven years ago The Guardian reported on a study that showed that when candidates auditioned behind a screen that hid the identity of the player that there was a corresponding, and dramatic, increase in the number of women who were hired to play in orchestras. The study supposedly proved sexism in the music industry.

One day, Jonatan Pallesen, decided to examine the study. He found only one statistically significant result. And this is what it was:

Yes, that’s right. The study showed anti-male bias in orchestra auditions. Men were being discriminated against. When the auditions became blind, men were the beneficiaries.

Of course, like the examples above, this study is also not particularly strong. It is simply notable that given the only statistically significant result, the researchers made the opposite conclusion from what the study data actually showed.

Inversion

What all of these studies have in common is their inversion of reality. All three studies showed statistical support for a particular conclusion and yet the researchers drew the exact opposite conclusion from what the statistics supported.

Unfortunately, this is very common, as Bruce Charlton noted with the interaction with the OG Pseudonymous Commenter:

Unless someone shows that they are genuinely interested in truth, you should not trust them. The propensity towards inversion is one of the most significant fruits demonstrating that one is not interested in truth.

Be careful and alert whenever you spot inversion (e.g. search for “invert” here, here, and here. Or see the examples in the comments here, here, here, and here). See how people respond when their inversions are pointed out.

Truthseeking

Can you, dear reader, see the difference?

The fact of the matter is that no man has the ability to evaluate every idea on merit by their own ability. No matter how talented or intelligent you are, you must rely on others.

Accepting authority is not an argument from authority. It is, rather obviously, not an argument at all. Yet, as I have written in the past, it is not even a fallacy for people to agree to use an authority—even in an actual argument—provided they mutually agree to do so. In other words, it’s not an appeal to authority, it’s merely an assumption, given, or axiom, rather than a part of the argument itself.

Notably also, trusting another person does not mean that the ideas you accept are not based on their own merit. It just means you are getting help in dealing with your own limitations. There is nothing wrong with that. Indeed, it’s essentially a requirement to get by in life.

The key is knowing how to determine who is—or isn’t—trustworthy.

So what do all of the three studies above have in common? What factor do they share that leads to their being untrustworthy?

Here is a hint: “Not Even Trying” by Bruce Charlton.