The Prevalence of Subtle Deception and Cognitive Bias in Scientific Journalism and Environmental Debates

The Prevalence of Subtle Deception and Cognitive Bias in Science Journalism and Environmental Debates

How data is presented is very important to how it is received and how the public reacts to it. Framing is a key feature of the technique known as Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). NLP has similarities to hypnosis and auto-suggestion. Influential people, politicians, and charismatic people do it purposely and/or naturally. It is often done in writing as well. How something is framed, or how it is presented affects how it is perceived and how conclusions are drawn. It is as simple as that. In behavioral economics this form of bias is called the framing effect. Biased journalists are very good at it. In the technique of science, the goal is the observed truth. Conclusions of experiments are based on evidence. However, that evidence is often presented as part of some bigger picture motive.

Cognitive Bias

We are all affected with cognitive bias. The reason we are attracted to it has to do with laziness, or more precisely with metabolic function: it takes energy which takes effort to make informed decisions. It is easier to just side with decisions made by others. It is easier, or at least seems easier, to parrot established viewpoints and keep them exercised and fresh by continued exposure to a limited range of viewpoints. Biased media sources are quite good at this. Fox News comes to mind but there are many others on both the right and the left side of the political spectrum. Thus views become less flexible and informed and more automated and rigid. Methods of de-biasing include making efforts to process information in a controlled manner rather than an automatic manner. Apparently, like with laziness, threats and incentives also work!

Bias in the Pro-Industry/Anti-Industry Debates and Some Insight From Cognitive Psychology and Behavioral Economics

Bias is something that can be reduced but rarely eliminated. We all have our biases. We should seek to reduce them as much as possible. It is important in all human relations to be able to empathize to some extent with others, often with those who hold different views than oneself. Bias can make people cheat. Presenting data in a deceptive way to support one’s viewpoint is indeed a kind of cheating, even if one doesn’t acknowledge it as such. Such cheating can be mitigated to some extent by stating things in terms of opinions rather than as facts, but not wholly. There is a pretty big gray area between reputable presentation of facts and deceptive presentation of facts. The need for fact-checking is greater than ever in these environmental debates. A large amount of environmental groups and websites are devoted 100% to discrediting various industries that by nature emit pollutants and greenhouse gases, the same industries (ie. fossil fuels) that make up to 67% of our electricity and fuel nearly 100% of our transportation, industries we obviously cannot live without at the moment or anytime soon. They are 100% biased. Pro-industry groups are biased as well but I find them to be significantly less biased overall. One significant issue is that the pro-industry groups are populated by people who work in an industry so they know how processes work and what really happens. Thus, as insiders they have a more accurate assessment of facts on the ground. Anti-industry groups are outsiders with limited information. They tend to read a lot into happenings that confirms their biases. They tend to have very limited information sources to support them. That is why the same few activist-scientists get quoted and relied upon in a vast number of anti-industry journalistic sources. In social psychology and behavioral economics this is called the anchoring bias - the tendency to rely too heavily on one particular source of information. It also seems that unless there is a vast amount of incontrovertible evidence to oppose their contentions they will still proclaim them boldly. The anti-industry groups are at a disadvantage with their dearth of insider information which makes them more susceptible to the anchoring bias, but they tend to make up for it with good organizational skills, passionate and rigid viewpoints, skillful presentation, and the ubiquitous use of “confirmation bias.” Of course, we all use confirmation bias to some extent. It is defined basically as - seeking out information that confirms what you already think. We all do it but we need to do it less. In the field of behavioral economics it is said that confirmation bias leads to incompetence. Anti-industry groups seem to have also benefited disproportionately from the availability bias – the tendency of the mind to pay more attention to what comes to mind – in this case prevalent news stories that present anti-industry sentiment. Pro-industry groups can also benefit from this if they are presented with pro-industry news but I can say with pretty fair certainty that most of the news, particularly in the fracking debates, has been anti-industry although both sides are often presented. One reason for this I think is the journalistic desire to make news. Debates attract people to respond. It is simply a way to increase audience and participation but not inherently deceptive. Another big issue is that journalists are presenting and evaluating science and industry and quite often these journalists are not competent to do so. Thus we have biased journalists and radical environmentalists being spokespeople regarding science and industry without proper knowledge or credentials. Not only are they biased they are also not competent regarding the industry or the science behind it. Often I read articles that complain that environmental groups were not consulted. While it is true that some environmental groups do have scientists and do engage in science it is often the more radical and biased groups that demand to be consulted and they are generally not knowledgeable about the science. Biased headlines and soundbites are perhaps the worst deceivers as often the report with the headline does not support the contentions of the headline. I had once thought that the internet would make the truth of things more obvious to everyone but I was wrong. It is a thriving fertile ground for deception and bias of many sorts. If one reads a lot of articles and then reads the comments one often finds the ugliness, the parroting of narrow inflexible viewpoints, and often the aggression of those holding them. Large amounts of people everywhere hold strongly to rigid viewpoints and biases that are simply unfounded. This is a concern and perhaps should be considered an illness of epidemic proportions. One might lump religious biases in this group as well, particularly those parts of religious dogma that oppress other people without warrant. Another issue on the radical environmental side is so-called “citizen science,” where radical environmentalists are empowered by radical environmentalist scientists to gather data to try and incriminate industry. Such has happened recently with those who seek to document air emissions in the oil and gas sector. Regardless of their results these efforts should not be seen as authentic scientific studies as they are strongly biased from the outset. In fairness, there are also similar groups, sometimes called “eco-cops” that have been good at documenting illegal activity: illegal fishing, illegal logging, illegal mining, and illegal dumping.

    

A Few Simple Examples

A recent report if the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) came out saying that greenhouse gas emissions from petrochemical plants will significantly increase emissions from the oil & gas sector. However, apparently the group used the federal emissions limits to derive those numbers and also apparently, in reality the numbers are far below the federal limits. Another example is an on-line discussion I was in about methane emissions. We were discussing the recent EPA greenhouse gas emissions report. We were discussion emissions from the oil and gas sector vs. emissions from the agricultural sector. The other person threw me a “gotcha” by stating the EPA’s correct contention that the oil and gas sector is the biggest industrial source of methane emissions. Yes it’s the biggest “industrial” source but apparently agriculture is not considered an industry. The graph showed 29% of emissions from oil and gas systems, 26% from enteric fermentation, and 10% from manure management – so 36% total from the ag sector. Another insidious example is the ubiquitous presence of the meme, particularly the social media/Facebook meme where biased statements are fed to us with pictures meant to influence our opinions. They seem to fit our time and space limitations and relegate everything to headline size. People actually present them to support their views. It is similar to confirmation bias in that it is a lazy (but apparently effective) way to argue for or against a position. For a few years I had to endure driving by a large billboard with a picture of a little girl in a field of sunflowers with a burning oil rig in the background with the words something like: Fracking, Are they lying to us? Luckily that highway was moved and I am not sure it is still there. A billboard such as that is a not so subtle form of demonization. It is simply association – joining two or more ideas in media format to associate one with the other. The obvious message was that fracking harms children (and flowers). I found it rather disgusting and a bit surprising that they would be permitted to put something so provocative up and force all to behold it repeatedly. Another example is the citizen science efforts noted above. Showing pictures of infrared emissions from oil and gas facilities is misleading as inexpensive infrared cameras do not quantify emissions, they merely show the presence of emissions. Those emissions may be tiny regardless of what the pictures look like.

The public backlash against fracking in particular has remained strong over the years and although polls suggest that those who support it are in the majority, that majority is not large. The oil & gas industry seeks more public acceptance and so should be eager to comply, even over-comply if possible, with existing regulations and proactive in anticipating future regulations. Unfortunately, this is especially difficult in the current very poor market environment for oil, gas, NGLs, and coal – all the fossil fuels. These days every explosion or spill, no matter how small or non-damaging, is often reported by the media, adding to the public’s evaluation of the industry. Websites keep tabs of so-called violations (some of which may be very minor) and so-called “fraccidents.” Slow and inadequate reactions to spills and accidents and any attempts to cover them up should be avoided at all costs. The reputation of each company is important and effective environmental and safety compliance should be a matter of pride for workers at all levels of a company including the contractors and subcontractors they employ. One case in point of slow and inadequate reaction to a spill is the Jan. 2014 water contamination event near Charleston, West Virginia, where a known potential spill issue (corroding tank with inadequate diking) near a river with a nearby public water intake with a chemical that can be strongly detected by smell at a mere few parts per billion was put on hold. The owners of the tank reacted slowly and without skill to the spill seeking to downplay its danger but for many days around 300,000 people were without water and could actually smell the chemical in their houses for days. It was a fiasco. Every company with potentially dangerous substances needs to assess and reduce its environmental liabilities and risks as much as possible and have practiced and frequently updated testing and protocols in place. Safety and environmental culture is very important and should not be neglected in the least. Every failure in compliance and spill or accident response feeds the biases of those unsure of whether to oppose or advocate their practices, toward opposing the whole industry of which they are a part. Even though one might cite statistics of reductions in spills and accidents, what the public sees in the media could well override it. Public scrutiny of industry is very high and in industries that move large amounts of materials of varying toxicity the chance for catastrophe is increased.

Examples of Subtle Deception That Have Become Routine

Starting from the pro-industry side in the fracking debate we have the common statement that hydraulic fracturing has been around since the late 1940,s and has been widely used for several decades. Yes, this is true. However, with the current high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) a well typically uses 50 to 100 times the amount of imput water and additives than in the older frac jobs. There is typically 50 times the waste water returning to the surface as flowback water and produced water. More waste water means more opportunities for spills and accidents as well as traffic and other possible disruptions to move and manage it. The industry is correct to insist that the hydraulic fracturing process itself does not and has not caused water contamination due to the nature of subsurface fluid flow. It is also correct to point out that it is not just wells associated with HVHF that are subject to potential methane migration issues. Methane migration can be and often is considered to be water contamination so in that sense fracking can and does occasionally cause water contamination but so too can conventional drilling and drilling water wells too deep in areas where there is shallow gas very close to fresh water aquifers. It is not exclusive to HVHF in any way, except possibly that the surface holes tend to be a little larger diameter in HVHF wells.

On the anti-industry side in the fracking debate is the "association" (see above) of all contamination issues with fracking by appropriating the word "fracking" to mean any process in oil and gas drilling, including conventional drilling. The headlines that fracking causes earthquakes, water contamination, air contamination, increased methane emissions, etc. all need to be qualified. The HVHF process itself can and has caused minor earthquake activity but those events have been exceedingly rare. Wastewater injection from HVHF and conventional well operations does cause earthquakes routinely under certain geologic conditions which are becoming better understood and more mitigatable. By appropriating the word "fracking" the anti-fracking contingency has been able to advance thgeir arguments. This is of course, deceptive. The anti-frackers have also called for monitoring wells around wastewater injection wells as there are around landfills. However, the liklihood of contamination around landfills is magnitudes greater than around injection wells simply because the landfills are close to the surface  and could easily contaminate surface and groundwater while injection wells are effectively sealed off  and inject fluids thousands of feet below groundwater aquifers. Overall though the burden of non-contamination should remain on industry and its advocates. For this reason industry needs to be as transparent, accountable, and non-deceptive as possible in order to outsmart the opposition and to win back public acceptance. Those in industry need to be proactive with emissions reductions and environmental and safety assurances. Instead of hearing about the API routinely complaining about regulations it would be better to bring out data that shows the industry is ahead of the curve. Assessments and newly required reporting are a potential to do that.

Other examples of routine subtle deceptions include arguments favoring renewable energy. Nameplate capacity is one where those capacities are given without the caveat of efficiency. Solar is typically 4 or more times less efficient than fossil fuels while wind is typically 2 to 3 times less efficient. Headlines that say Germany of whatever area made 50% or 100% renewable energy at a certain time may be technically correct but that time period may have been a half-hour of a 24-hour day. Headlines that claim 100% renewable energy is achievable now are highgly unrealistic, and yet people proclaim them all the time. Sure it would be theoretically possible but at an economical scale and cost that would dwarf any other human effort and would still come with many uncertainties. Headlines that state that renewables are cost competitive with fossil fuels are mostly deceptive although there are a few places where part of the time they can be with the advantages of direct government subsidization. Often when complaining about subsidies to fossil fuels those complaining will consider the social costs of carbon as a subsidy to fossil fuels. While one can make such an argument it is also true that it is not a direct subsidy like wind production tax credits. Headlines about new renewable technologies are another often deceptive situation where processes are theoretically possible but not scale-able or in any way economic. Somne of these new technologies have been worked on for several decades without much improvement.

Another issue on the anti-industry side in general is the deceptive counting of wood and biomass as a renewable energy that is without significant impact. Technically, yes it is a renewable energy but it is not carbon neutral. It may be carbon lean but to varying degrees. It creates particulates and pollutants. It uses carbon in its considerable processing and transport. It is partly supplied by deforestation which removes carbon sink potential. Other biomass such as most liquid biofuels are arguable as carbon emitting or more than fossil fuels. Biomass overall has a limited potential of providing much more to total energy demand than it currently does and so should not be considered a significant contributor or solution to carbon emissions.

References:

Reducing Cognitive Bias: A Guide for the Perplexed – by M. Bird (kindle ed) – although this guide is useful and made a decent quick reference it should be noted that the “book” was found to be only about the size of a Wikipedia article and perhaps not worth the $4.99 cost IMHO.

  

Critique of Fracking Industry Challenged – by Chris Woodward (OneNewsNow.com), March 3, 2016