Strong Opinions, Loosely Held

Photo by Markus Winkler

"Strong Opinions, Loosely Held" is one of the popular maxims of the last decade. Although its origin could be traced back to Charles Darwin's way of thinking, it was made popular by Stanford University professor Paul Saffo. The idea is to form an opinion with the help of inherent knowledge and available information and then seek disconfirming evidence against it. One is supposed to adjust her opinions in the presence of counter-evidence or lack thereof. This iterative process helps refine the initial opinion for the better.

Sounds counterintuitive, isn’t it? How can someone have strong opinions without having vetted those opinions in the first place? Secondly, is it possible to have opinions without being attached to them personally? What about the effects of confirmation bias while seeking evidence against one's beliefs?

Some answers could be traced back to the Scientific Method of Thinking. I'll go out on a limb and argue that the notion of Strong Opinions, Loosely Held (SOLH)  is just an extension of the Scientific Method of Thinking (SMoT). I'll try to explain, but first, let’s try to understand what the scientific method actually is.

The scientific method is a method of gaining knowledge through experiments that collect evidence with the help of senses (such as sight, smell). Experiments in the scientific method try to test a hypothesis.

A hypothesis is a proposed explanation of an observable event that can either be verified or falsified via experiments. In simpler words, a hypothesis is an educated guess that can be tested.

Thus, scientific knowledge is posteriori knowledge and is acquired after experiments. Posteriori is Latin for 'from the later’. Posteriori knowledge is arrived at after an investigation, unlike A priori knowledge which is either implied or can be arrived at by reasoning only.

Here's an example.

Suppose I claim I got vaccinated against Covid - 19. An independent observer might ask for evidence and I can produce proof of vaccination I received from the hospital.

Now the observer can be certain to a degree that I got vaccinated.  To a degree because the proof could be fake as well. Still, the observer can say with some confidence that the author is vaccinated. The claim rests on the observed results of the experiment. Proof seeking can be treated as an experiment. This is posteriori knowledge.

Now suppose, after vaccination, I fell sick for 7 days. It also means that I was ill on the 6th day. No experiment is required to ascertain that since it is already established that I was ill for 7 days. This is A priori knowledge. It can be deduced by pure reasoning.

Adjusting views, in light of new evidence after the experiment, is at the core of SMoT. The observer forms a hypothesis and then attempts to rule out all possible rival hypotheses. If she can't rule out a hypothesis she must accept it.

The scientific method of thinking thrives on shooting down the hypotheses and then adjusting the assumptions. Which is similar to what SOLH seems to suggest. Forming strong opinions that are loosely held can be translated as forming hypotheses and being open to adjusting those hypotheses.

But can someone have a strong opinion about something without being attached to it personally?

The answer is yes, although it is impossibly difficult to practice. Because arguments are (wrongly) seen as an extension of individual behavior and hence quite often a speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself. A strategy referred to as Ad Hominem. This is an external perspective i.e. an observer does not treat a person and her opinions independently of each other.

From an individual's internal perspective, I could think of the following reasons why people have a personal attachment to their views :

1. Mental Effort: Evaluating alternative opinion requires effort and the human brain tends to avoid that.

2. Emotions: Individual judgment is often influenced by which side a person wants to win.

3. Motivated Reasoning: All ideas don't feel like friends. People tend to ignore ideas that they feel are acting against them.

4. Social Pressure: Taking a side is equated with having a spine and being assertive. Changing sides/opinions is seen as a weakness of character.

5. Confirmation Bias:  The tendency of people to favor information that confirms or strengthens their beliefs or values, and is difficult to dislodge once affirmed. Essentially people preserve their beliefs while searching for evidence, interpreting it, or recalling it from memory.

Changing personal opinions on a matter is difficult and is seen as an evasive action at the least. But that should not undermine the importance of SMoT or SOLH.

SOLH is an effective mental model for decision-making. Especially in complex situations. The model forces an individual to make initial hypotheses based on her own knowledge, skills, experiences. SOLH not only keeps a window open to adjusting hypotheses but also seeks counter evidences actively. Having tested one's own beliefs for safety, reliability and leakage makes the arguments tighter and helps in confident decision-making.

Finally, one asymmetry that would require further exploration is meta-scientific thinking, i.e. testing the effectiveness of scientific thinking itself.

More on that sometimes later, maybe. It could be a rabbit hole for all you know.

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keep exploring

kns

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