Like many a crank before him, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decided that the best way to promote his ideas — mostly opposition to vaccines, with a smattering of various conspiracy theories thrown in — would be to run for president. Because he is doing that, and because of the family name he bears, he is able to get attention that is no doubt the envy of crackpots everywhere. At the moment, that means the country’s most widely heard podcaster (Joe Rogan) and the world’s richest man (Elon Musk) are not only rallying to Kennedy’s side but also challenging a renowned virologist and vaccine developer to debate Kennedy on Rogan’s program.
The virologist, Peter Hotez, has not taken the bait, for which he is being assaulted on right-wing media. But the whole episode illustrates something depressing: Democratic debate and deliberation were supposed to be how we test ideas, reveal the truth and come to collective decisions. Yet today, “debate” is far more likely to make us dumber than to help us plot a course for the future. When was the last time you heard (or read) two people debate an issue from opposing sides and felt enlightened when it was over?
Hotez, who is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, became a visible media expert at the start of the covid pandemic. He has been extremely critical of Kennedy, one of the most prominent and extravagant anti-vaxxers in American life. When Hotez recently criticized Kennedy again, Rogan offered to give $100,000 to the charity of Hotez’s choice if he would debate Kennedy on Rogan’s show. When Hotez declined, Musk chimed in to say the virologist is “afraid of a public debate, because he knows he’s wrong.”
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Hotez’s logic is simple and absolutely correct: When an expert “debates” a crank, nothing is accomplished except elevating the crank to a status he doesn’t deserve. Few if any will be persuaded of the truth, and the result will be a less informed public. Conspiratorial beliefs such as those Kennedy advocates might be among the hardest to dislodge by reasoned argument; to be a conspiracy theorist is to commit yourself to a project of ignoring reason and facts in favor of an endless search for obscure connections, hidden agendas and secret cabals. No one erects stouter walls against the possibility of being persuaded than the conspiracy theorist.
But even if Kennedy were a more reasonable person, the idea that two people who disagree about an important issue could engage on Rogan’s podcast and the result would be a better-informed public more ready to make a collective decision is absurd.
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Yet while scientific questions aren’t resolved by performative “debates,” that is how we have long thought we should settle political questions. The idea is embedded in theories of democracy that go all the way back to ancient Greece. Debate is how democracies decide: We put our ideas in front of the polity, probe and examine them, attack them and defend them, and the better ones prevail.
That process is supposed to reveal the truth and guide us toward good decisions. If an idea is false, the debate will reveal it to be so. If an idea is true, the debate will persuade us of its wisdom. When it’s over, we might not have perfect consensus, but we’ll know how to proceed.
Now: Does that sound anything like debate in America today?
Legislators have something they call debates, but they mostly talk past each other. Candidates have debates that are all about coming up with zingers and avoiding “gaffes,” the better to win the post-debate contest of memes. Cable news is filled with debates every day, and social media produces more debates than anyone could count. Yet precious little of it contains even the possibility that anyone would be persuaded of anything, since it takes place in partisan contexts where having one’s mind changed by a superior argument would mean crossing over to the enemy’s side, threatening deeply meaningful connections of identity.
That might not be true of every debate we have; there are complex policy questions in which the options aren’t black and white, and some arguments are so ridiculous that they don’t survive scrutiny. And it isn’t that we’re inherently incapable of having our minds changed by debate. Scholars have created “deliberation” experiments in which people listen to experts with competing ideas and discuss issues among themselves; the results often show a heartening amount of sophisticated thought and even change in opinions.
But in what we see in the media every day, debate is merely a performance, the search for truth set aside in favor of looking smart and defeating one’s opponents. This has been a problem since ancient Greece as well; the word “sophistry,” meaning plausible-sounding but fallacious argument, comes from the Sophists, who made a profession of teaching people how to argue long before the invention of instructional YouTube videos.
Almost four centuries ago, English poet John Milton made a plea for freedom of speech, saying we should not doubt the power of truth. “Let her and falsehood grapple,” Milton wrote. “Who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?” The unfortunate answer in our world is that truth is put to the worse every day, and the kind of debates we’ve gotten used to only make it easier for falsehood to survive.
The virologist, Peter Hotez, has not taken the bait, for which he is being assaulted on right-wing media. But the whole episode illustrates something depressing: Democratic debate and deliberation were supposed to be how we test ideas, reveal the truth and come to collective decisions. Yet today, “debate” is far more likely to make us dumber than to help us plot a course for the future. When was the last time you heard (or read) two people debate an issue from opposing sides and felt enlightened when it was over?
Hotez, who is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, became a visible media expert at the start of the covid pandemic. He has been extremely critical of Kennedy, one of the most prominent and extravagant anti-vaxxers in American life. When Hotez recently criticized Kennedy again, Rogan offered to give $100,000 to the charity of Hotez’s choice if he would debate Kennedy on Rogan’s show. When Hotez declined, Musk chimed in to say the virologist is “afraid of a public debate, because he knows he’s wrong.”
ADVERTISING
Hotez’s logic is simple and absolutely correct: When an expert “debates” a crank, nothing is accomplished except elevating the crank to a status he doesn’t deserve. Few if any will be persuaded of the truth, and the result will be a less informed public. Conspiratorial beliefs such as those Kennedy advocates might be among the hardest to dislodge by reasoned argument; to be a conspiracy theorist is to commit yourself to a project of ignoring reason and facts in favor of an endless search for obscure connections, hidden agendas and secret cabals. No one erects stouter walls against the possibility of being persuaded than the conspiracy theorist.
But even if Kennedy were a more reasonable person, the idea that two people who disagree about an important issue could engage on Rogan’s podcast and the result would be a better-informed public more ready to make a collective decision is absurd.
Press Enter to skip to end of carousel
Yet while scientific questions aren’t resolved by performative “debates,” that is how we have long thought we should settle political questions. The idea is embedded in theories of democracy that go all the way back to ancient Greece. Debate is how democracies decide: We put our ideas in front of the polity, probe and examine them, attack them and defend them, and the better ones prevail.
That process is supposed to reveal the truth and guide us toward good decisions. If an idea is false, the debate will reveal it to be so. If an idea is true, the debate will persuade us of its wisdom. When it’s over, we might not have perfect consensus, but we’ll know how to proceed.
Now: Does that sound anything like debate in America today?
Legislators have something they call debates, but they mostly talk past each other. Candidates have debates that are all about coming up with zingers and avoiding “gaffes,” the better to win the post-debate contest of memes. Cable news is filled with debates every day, and social media produces more debates than anyone could count. Yet precious little of it contains even the possibility that anyone would be persuaded of anything, since it takes place in partisan contexts where having one’s mind changed by a superior argument would mean crossing over to the enemy’s side, threatening deeply meaningful connections of identity.
That might not be true of every debate we have; there are complex policy questions in which the options aren’t black and white, and some arguments are so ridiculous that they don’t survive scrutiny. And it isn’t that we’re inherently incapable of having our minds changed by debate. Scholars have created “deliberation” experiments in which people listen to experts with competing ideas and discuss issues among themselves; the results often show a heartening amount of sophisticated thought and even change in opinions.
But in what we see in the media every day, debate is merely a performance, the search for truth set aside in favor of looking smart and defeating one’s opponents. This has been a problem since ancient Greece as well; the word “sophistry,” meaning plausible-sounding but fallacious argument, comes from the Sophists, who made a profession of teaching people how to argue long before the invention of instructional YouTube videos.
Almost four centuries ago, English poet John Milton made a plea for freedom of speech, saying we should not doubt the power of truth. “Let her and falsehood grapple,” Milton wrote. “Who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?” The unfortunate answer in our world is that truth is put to the worse every day, and the kind of debates we’ve gotten used to only make it easier for falsehood to survive.
