Information Dilution

Jorn Barger’s wonderful Robot Wisdom Weblog recently returned (after having gone mysteriously missing for over a year). From it, I’ve linked to a great article by Edward Tufte about how the findings of primary studies gradually lose their power and meaning, when they become repackaged and redistributed by secondary organizations (journalists, public relations firms, think tanks, nongovernmental organizations, governmental agencies, and on and on – see the posts from the previous couple of days):

In repackagings, a persistent rage to conclude denies the complexities, ambiguities and uncertainties of the primary evidence. A substantial selection bias also operates: news wins out over olds, as recency of evidence decides relevance of evidence.

You must see the original to get the subtext behind the phrase “rage to conclude”, which is a wonderful quote from Flaubert.

According to Tufte, secondary organizations filter and inevitably corrupt the evidence-based findings in a primary report, as they summarize, simplify, synthesize and spin the material to suit their particular needs. While not mentioned, I’m certain that blogs would also fall into this category. Readers continually need to ask themselves if what they are getting from any source truly constitutes information. A definition of information that I have found useful is in James Q. Wilson’s book Bureaucracy:

. . . a full, accurate, and properly nuanced body of knowledge about important matters. . . .

Paraphrasing Wilson, often what we get instead is:

. . . a torrent of incomplete facts, opinions, guesses and self-serving statements about distant events.

Tufte says that consumers of evidence should stay reasonably close to primary sources and to secondary reporters and synthesizers who provide unbiased interpretations (note that in practice this could be a bit difficult, because it requires taking the time to compare original source and secondary compilation, and the original source might be technical and difficult to understand – time and ease of understanding being two reasons for turning to secondary sources). Signs of an untrustworthy source are denial of access to primary evidence or repackaged reports that always support a party line.

I get the sense that Tufte feels not being scrupulously intellectually honest in how one writes, describes or summarizes another’s work is inherently corrupting. Using examples of corporate communications and government intelligence agencies, he notes that in distorting and spinning evidence to others, we may start to do something worse – lying to ourselves.