Falsehood and No Consequences (Nature's Review of The Anxious Generation)
The review of Haidt's new book by Candice Odgers may be a sign of an ongoing transition of Nature from science to ideology.
The recent review in Nature of Jon Haidt's book The Anxious Generation raises grave questions about the role of truth and falsehood in current debates about the impacts of social media on adolescents.
This post is part of a series concerned with the review in Nature of Haidt’s book:
Note: the intent of this series is not to defend Haidt — he is capable of doing so on his own. The intent is to show how the debate about his new book is dominated by ideologies instead of criticism. That does not mean that there is no legitimate criticism of Haidt — I myself hope to have provided such criticism in the past and hope to provide more of it in the future.
Incompetent Ignoramus Haidt?
Candice Odgers, the author of the review, asserts that Haidt is making up 'stories' based solely on graphs where digital-technology use and adolescent mental-health problems are rising together.
Odgers then proceeds to eviscerate Haidt by comparing him to students who have not yet learned the very basics of causal inference:
On the first day of the graduate statistics class I teach, I draw similar lines on a board that seem to connect two disparate phenomena, and ask the students what they think is happening. Within minutes, the students usually begin telling elaborate stories about how the two phenomena are related, even describing how one could cause the other. The plots presented throughout this book will be useful in teaching my students the fundamentals of causal inference, and how to avoid making up stories by simply looking at trend lines.
This rather shocking indictment of Haidt rests entirely on the assertion that Haidt failed to support his theories by anything at all beyond the mere coincidence of digital tech use and adolescent mental health problems rising at the same time.
If Odgers is truthful, then Haidt must be an astonishingly ignorant fool.
And that would not be the worst of it.
Is Haidt Insane?
Haidt has spent much of the last year presenting many types of evidence, such as surveys data and longitudinal studies and experimental and quasi-experimental studies showing various associations between heavy social media use and mental health problems among adolescents. Besides dozens of posts discussing this evidence on his Substack After Babel, Haidt also administers a site titled Social Media and Mental Health: A Collaborative Review that is dedicated to cataloging and summarizing such research while inviting criticism of the studies from his opponents.
Why would Haidt leave all this painstakingly collected material out of his book?
The only rational explanation seems to be that Haidt must have lost his mind.
That is if Odgers is telling the truth.
Those who have The Anxious Generation can decide for themselves.
Those who do not can download the Notes and References in the book and find dozens upon dozens of specific studies that, according to Odgers, are never mentioned in the book.
Does Truth Still Matter in Social Sciences?
Is Nature even willing to uphold the most minimal standards of basic accuracy?
The editors of Nature revealed their own bias in the subtitle of the review (typically set by editors), where they refer to a "rising hysteria" in connection to Haidt's book (the 'hysteria' angle is not present in Odgers' review itself) — obviously insinuating he’s the one largely responsible for the supposed hysteria.
Did the editors publish Odgers in order to signal to future contributors that truth and reality can be distorted to an arbitrary degree as long as this serves whatever views the editors of Nature espouse?
If so then we must congratulate them on message successfully sent and received.
What those dedicated to science rather than to ideologies need ask is this: can there be a real scientific dialogue unless both sides commit to at least some level of veracity?