I would suggest if you already have strong belief's about the value of
gun control laws, your opinion on the issue is unlikely to be swayed by
statistical studies counter to your belief, regardless of the quality of
the study. Research by Jonathon Haidt and others suggest that most
people form emotional moral judgments first, then look for evidence to
support their beliefs afterward. However, people _think_ that their
beliefs arise from a rational evaluation of the issue. This helps
explain the rancor that often develops during discussions of emotionally
hot issues like gun control. If, after carefully laying out the
evidence for your case, your opponent still retains beliefs that
contradict yours, then you're likely to believe that either a) your
opponent is irrational, b) your opponent is lying, c) your opponent is
an idiot.
Statistical evidence is only likely to be persuasive if you do not
already have strong opinions on the matter. Indeed, some research
suggests that directly arguing against someone else's beliefs will tend
to entrain them even deeper. For a more extensive discussion see
Haidt's review, The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail: A Social
Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment at
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~jdh6n/intuition.html.
Even if you have no a priori strong opinion, I think it would be wise to
be skeptical of studies funded by ideological organizations. For
example, I would be quite skeptical of a study performed by HandGun
Control, Inc. and I am sympathetic to those on the opposite side of the
issue who find a study by two University of Chicago professors
unpersuasive.
As a model of how to help break this deadlock, I would like to see more
studies funded by organizations modelled along the lines of the US
Environmental Protection Agency's Health Effects Institute. From a
Washington Post article by David Ropeik:
Some years ago, the Environmental Protection
Agency and the
automobile industry declared something of a truce
in their war
over the science of automobile emissions. Instead
of each side
spending millions on self-funded research the
other side wouldn't
accept, they each put in 50 percent of the money
necessary--a
total of $6 million--to create something called
the Health Effects
Institute. HEI was not created to make policy,
but to give
policymakers credible, trustworthy scientific
information on which
rational policy could be based. It was set up to
be an impartial
scientific review board--an agency of neutral
arbiters, outside the
government, beholden to nothing but the truth. To
conduct its
evaluations, it appoints panels of scientists,
representing their
various fields somewhat as a jury represents the
community in a
trial, so that no one with an ax to grind can
control the process.
For example, it would be nice if HCI and the NRA could jointly sponsor a
Firearms Research Insitute, funded equally by both parties, to carry out
the research. I think that the gun control debate would rage on,
because individuals vary in their judgments of "acceptable risk", but at
least both sides would be arguing using studies that both believe to be
valid.
(Source: Let's Get Real About Risk
David Ropeik, director of risk communication for the Harvard Center for
Risk Analysis
Sunday, August 06, 2000, pg. B01
Washington Post
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41017-2000Aug5.html )
