Mistake theory and the scientific mindset

Scott Alexander talks about conflict theory and mistake theory. (I will not attempt to summarize this because you should just go read the post—but basically conflict theory sees problems as the result of bad actors, and mistake theory sees problems as the result of inevitable human error.)

American Scientists and Nuclear Weapons Policy is a book by scholar Robert Gilpin published in 1962 which discusses the relation between... you guessed it! 

It’s not a surprise that readers of Slate Star Codex, a disproportionately STEM-y, scientific group, find themselves so squarely on the side of mistake theory; the scientific mindset has apparently since before 1962 lent itself to mistake theory. Gilpin writes: “Whereas the politician often seeks to persuade an opponent through appeals to passion, the threat of force, and the use of force, the scientist tends to assume there is one truth to which all reasonable men will accede once its nature has been explained” (306).

(Gilpin’s scientist “believes a priori that there is a solution to be found to every problem and he expects to find the solution to the problem of atomic weapons just as he expects to find the solution to a problem in physics; he rejects the notion that the problem of atomic weapons may admit of no final solution but may be a problem with which man must deal as best he can for the rest of his existence” (29).)

This is textbook mistake theory: we find the truth through debate, “explain” it, and then everyone will naturally come to agree. This is what science at least thinks it does, so of course scientists, who are a group selected for people who support the scientific mindset, think this must carry over into politics, and are surprised and disappointed when it doesn’t (when the US and the USSR met at the Geneva Conference of Experts to discuss nuclear testing, the US sent scientists, and the USSR sent both scientists and negotiators; the scientists, unaccustomed to political machinations and probably operating in good faith, were operating at a different level from the skilled Soviet negotiators, and didn’t notice the often subtle errors and alterations the negotiators made in the agreement).