The irrationality of denial conquered by my great-aunt’s denial of irrationality

There is a body of opinion – let’s call it the “consensus” – that only Chelsea or Manchester United can win the Premiership in 2007. Within that consensus, of course, there are shades: from “catastrophic” that Man Utd should win, to merely very, very bad that Chelsea do. Surely no good citizen can disagree. Well, they can. Because we have a group loosely called the “Redblue-deniers”. Some think there’s only a chance, a small one not worth worrying too much about, that Chelsea or Man Utd will prevail; and that anyway, the emotional pain of that eventuality could be offset by laying a reverse forecast on the title. Most, though, seem convinced it will be Reading’s year.

Now, let’s take my imaginary great-aunt. She knows nothing at all about football. Well, she knows the basic rules, but thinks that Eric Cantona is a Romantic poet. She’s a layperson. Who should she believe? She’s well versed in Kuhn’s paradigm shift theory: she knows there’s nothing magical about consensus. The consensus has been wrong many times: “Just look at Galileo”, she said to me the other day. She wants no part of the groupthink that pollutes the back pages; she’s also aware that the unthinking rejection of consensus as mere groupthink is itself a form of groupthink. At root she’s not qualified to judge on her own, so what does she do? More interestingly, what is it rational for her to do?

Well, we can discount Reading fans from her equation. They obviously have a vested interest; ditto anyone who has been drinking for free in the hospitality suite. As do all the partisans, the local journalists, the ex-players, from every side. That still leaves a lot of people, people who know their onions about football, all certain that only Chelsea or Man Utd can win.

“You don’t have any choice”, I told her. “Consensus, in science or sport, is just a majority expert opinion. It isn’t a proof, of course. But then you’ve not proved that Britain is an island by sailing round it, have you? Yet you believe it is. Quite rationally. To ignore consensus without real knowledge is nothing more than irrational obscurantism. You’re as well to shelter under a tree in an electric storm.”

She seemed happy with that. I packed her off with a couple of books on logical positivism that Rio^* lent me, along with a tenner to lay that reverse forecast. Y’know, just in case.

^* That’s Inferior frontal lobe, dad.

First published at The Sharpener.