The Big Interrupter

 

“Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.” – Edgar Allan Poe

  It’s generally agreed that Trump was uncontrolled in his debate against Biden and that he interrupted Biden constantly…. That’s certainly how I felt… It’s common knowledge that our biases affect our particular judgements. They color our perceptions, not only in how we come to conclusions about general facts and phenomena, but also in how we interpret very particular facts and events. One place where this is apparent is in the political arena. For as long as I’ve been watching political debates, I’ve noticed the tendency of watchers to view the same debate differently – with each group tending to downgrade the performance of the candidate of the opposing party and upgrade the performance of the candidate of their own. Last week, at the first dinner party K and I have attended in months, the conversation turned to Trump. K, L, and G were recounting the many ways they see Trump as a vile person, as well as their hatred for the man. Actual hatred. For a man they’ve never met. That didn’t surprise me. Nor did it outrage me. There is a great deal about Trump that I find interesting, but virtually nothing I actually like. I could never be friends with him. I’d never trust him as a business partner. But I do think he’s done some good for the country. Lowering taxes, reducing regulations, reforming the criminal justice systems, etc. His trade policy, on the other hand, is a disaster. In response to their vitriol, I wanted to say: “Do you see how insane you are? That your hate for Trump has made you incapable of having rational thoughts when his name is invoked?” Of course, I knew I couldn’t say that. But a moment later, when the conversation turned to the presidential debate, I realized I had an opportunity to say some version of that. “He’s such a bully,” G said. “He interrupted Biden non-stop. He must have interrupted him a hundred times.” The others agreed. Coincidentally, I had just read something on that issue that very morning. Rather than repeat what I had read, which would have been dismissed summarily, I decided to ask them a question. “We all agree that Trump interrupted Biden a lot,” I said. “But we know that Biden interrupted Trump, too. My question is:  What was the ratio? How many times did each candidate interrupt the other?” L: “I don’t know. Maybe 40 Trump to 10 Biden.” G: “It was more like 60 to 5.” K: “It must have been 100 to 1.” Let’s look at the actual numbers: The Washington Post counted 71 interruptions for Trump and 22 for Biden, cleverly calling Trump the “Interrupter-in-Chief.” Fox News counted 71 for Trump and 49 for Biden, reporting the RNC’s declaration of Trump as winner of the debate and Biden as being “too weak.” I asked Amaru, our number-one researcher, to take a look and do his own count, based on two different definitions of “interrupt.”

1. Interruptions that happened only when one candidate was speaking during the time he was given for “uninterrupted speech.” Amaru counted 55 by Trump and 31 by Biden.
2. Any and all interruptions. This time, Amaru counted 84 by Trump and 69 by Biden.

What’s going on here? It looks like The Washington Post and Fox were using two different definitions. And each definition was designed to produce a different outcome. Here’s my takeaway – and I’ll keep it simple… Facts are not always as factual as they might seem. They depend on the questions, assumptions, and definitions that are made while gathering them. This is true of every set of facts in every field of study. (I’ve been publishing information on health for 40 years, and I can tell you, with confidence, that many of the facts we take as scientific and therefore true are not facts at all, but consciously calculated findings meant to arrive at a desired conclusion.) I can’t say exactly what criteria WaPo and Fox used to arrive at their very different numbers. But I can tell you that it didn’t take much – in our own little experiment – to dramatically affect our numbers. So be skeptical of facts – especially when they are used to advance a political or commercial agenda. Keep an open mind. But stay skeptical. And be especially skeptical when the facts support the narrative of your choice. As Amaru said, “If my mom, the person I trusted most in the world, told me that the stars had all turned into bright red and green sparkles, I’d still want to go out and take a look.”  

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