Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting
opinion
An opinion is a judgment, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, rather than facts, which are true statements.
Definition
A given opinion may deal with subjective matters in which there is no conclusive finding, or it may deal with f ...
or point of view. The word was coined from the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an opposite direction".
Legal
In the
theory of law, a controversy differs from a
legal case
A legal case is in a general sense a dispute between opposing parties which may be resolved by a court, or by some equivalent legal process. A legal case is typically based on either civil or criminal law. In most legal cases there are one or mor ...
; while legal cases include all suits,
criminal
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...
as well as
civil
Civil may refer to:
*Civic virtue, or civility
*Civil action, or lawsuit
* Civil affairs
*Civil and political rights
*Civil disobedience
*Civil engineering
*Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism
*Civilian, someone not a membe ...
, a controversy is a purely civil proceeding.
For example, the
Case or Controversy Clause
The Supreme Court of the United States has interpreted the Case or Controversy Clause of Article III of the United States Constitution (found in Art. III, Section 2, Clause 1) as embodying two distinct limitations on exercise of judicial revie ...
of
Article Three of the United States Constitution
Article Three of the United States Constitution establishes the judicial branch of the U.S. federal government. Under Article Three, the judicial branch consists of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as lower courts created by Congres ...
(
Section 2, Clause 1) states that "the judicial Power shall extend ... to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party". This clause has been deemed to impose a requirement that United States federal courts are not permitted to cases that do not pose an actual controversy—that is, an actual dispute between adverse parties which is capable of being resolved by the
ourt In addition to setting out the scope of the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary, it also prohibits courts from issuing
advisory opinion
An advisory opinion is an opinion issued by a court or a commission like an election commission that does not have the effect of adjudicating a specific legal case, but merely advises on the constitutionality or interpretation of a law. Some cou ...
s, or from hearing cases that are either
unripe
Ripening is a process in fruits that causes them to become more palatable. In general, fruit becomes sweeter, less green, and softer as it ripens. Even though the acidity of fruit increases as it ripens, the higher acidity level does not make the ...
, meaning that the controversy has not arisen yet, or
moot
Moot may refer to:
* Mootness, in American law: a point where further proceedings have lost practical significance; whereas in British law: the issue remains debatable
* Moot court, an activity in many law schools where participants take part in s ...
, meaning that the controversy has already been resolved.
Benford's law
Benford's law of controversy
Gregory Benford (born January 30, 1941) is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is professor emeritus at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. He is a contributing editor of ''Reaso ...
, as expressed by the astrophysicist and science fiction author
Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford (born January 30, 1941) is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is professor emeritus at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. He is a contributing editor of ''Reas ...
in 1980, states: ''
Passion is
inversely proportional
In mathematics, two sequences of numbers, often experimental data, are proportional or directly proportional if their corresponding elements have a constant ratio, which is called the coefficient of proportionality or proportionality constan ...
to the amount of real
information
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
available.'' In other words, it claims that the less factual information is available on a topic, the more controversy can arise around that topic – and the more facts are available, the less controversy can arise. Thus, for example, controversies in physics would be limited to subject areas where experiments cannot be carried out yet, whereas controversies would be inherent to politics, where communities must frequently decide on courses of action based on insufficient information.
Psychological bases
Controversies are frequently thought to be a result of a lack of confidence on the part of the disputants – as implied by
Benford's law of controversy
Gregory Benford (born January 30, 1941) is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is professor emeritus at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. He is a contributing editor of ''Reaso ...
, which only talks about lack of information ("passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available"). For example, in analyses of the political controversy over
anthropogenic climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
, which is exceptionally virulent in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, it has been proposed that those who are opposed to the scientific consensus do so because they don't have enough information about the topic. A study of 1540 US adults found instead that levels of scientific literacy correlated with the strength of
opinion on climate change, but not on which side of the debate that they stood.
The puzzling phenomenon of two individuals being able to reach different conclusions after being exposed to the same facts has been frequently explained (particularly by Daniel Kahneman) by reference to a '
bounded rationality
Bounded rationality is the idea that rationality is limited when individuals make decisions, and under these limitations, rational individuals will select a decision that is satisfactory rather than optimal.
Limitations include the difficulty of ...
' – in other words, that most judgments are made using fast acting heuristics that work well in every day situations, but are not amenable to decision-making about complex subjects such as climate change.
Anchoring
An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ἄγ ...
has been particularly identified as relevant in climate change controversies as individuals are found to be more positively inclined to believe in climate change if the outside temperature is higher, if they have been primed to think about heat, and if they are primed with higher temperatures when thinking about the future temperature increases from climate change.
In other controversies – such as that around the
HPV vaccine
Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines are vaccines that prevent infection by certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV). Available HPV vaccines protect against either two, four, or nine types of HPV. All HPV vaccines protect against at least HP ...
, the same evidence seemed to license inference to radically different conclusions. Kahan et al. explained this by the cognitive biases of biased assimilation and a credibility heuristic.
Similar effects on reasoning are also seen in non-scientific controversies, for example in the
gun control debate in the United States.
As with other controversies, it has been suggested that exposure to empirical facts would be sufficient to resolve the debate once and for all. In computer simulations of cultural communities, beliefs were found to polarize within isolated sub-groups, based on the mistaken belief of the community's unhindered access to ground truth.
Such confidence in the group to find the ground truth is explicable through the success of
wisdom of the crowd
The wisdom of the crowd is the collective opinion of a diverse independent group of individuals rather than that of a single expert. This process, while not new to the Information Age, has been pushed into the mainstream spotlight by social infor ...
based inferences. However, if there is no access to the ground truth, as there was not in this model, the method will fail.
Bayesian decision theory
In estimation theory and decision theory, a Bayes estimator or a Bayes action is an estimator or decision rule that minimizes the posterior expected value of a loss function (i.e., the posterior expected loss). Equivalently, it maximizes the po ...
allows these failures of rationality to be described as part of a statistically optimized system for decision making. Experiments and computational models in
multisensory integration
Multisensory integration, also known as multimodal integration, is the study of how information from the different sensory modalities (such as sight, sound, touch, smell, self-motion, and taste) may be integrated by the nervous system. A coherent r ...
have shown that sensory input from different senses is integrated in a statistically optimal way, in addition, it appears that the kind of inferences used to infer single sources for multiple sensory inputs uses a Bayesian inference about the causal origin of the sensory stimuli. As such, it appears neurobiologically plausible that the brain implements decision-making procedures that are close to optimal for Bayesian inference.
Brocas and Carrillo propose a model to make decisions based on noisy sensory inputs,
beliefs about the state of the world are modified by Bayesian updating, and then decisions are made based on beliefs passing a threshold. They show that this model, when optimized for single-step decision making, produces belief
anchoring
An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ἄγ ...
and polarization of opinions – exactly as described in the
global warming controversy context – in spite of identical evidence presented, the pre-existing beliefs (or evidence presented first) has an overwhelming effect on the beliefs formed. In addition, the preferences of the agent (the particular rewards that they value) also cause the beliefs formed to change – this explains the biased assimilation (also known as
confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring ...
) shown above. This model allows the production of controversy to be seen as a consequence of a decision maker optimized for single-step decision making, rather than as a result of limited reasoning in the
bounded rationality
Bounded rationality is the idea that rationality is limited when individuals make decisions, and under these limitations, rational individuals will select a decision that is satisfactory rather than optimal.
Limitations include the difficulty of ...
of
Daniel Kahneman
Daniel Kahneman (; he, דניאל כהנמן; born March 5, 1934) is an Israeli-American psychologist and economist notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, as well as behavioral economics, for which he was award ...
.
See also
*
Argument
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
*
Bipartisanship
Bipartisanship, sometimes referred to as nonpartisanship, is a political situation, usually in the context of a two-party system (especially those of the United States and some other western countries), in which opposing political parties find c ...
*
Dialectic
Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...
*
ProCon.org
*
Scandal
A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way. Th ...
*
Third rail (politics)
The third rail of a nation's politics is a metaphor for any issue so controversial that it is "charged" and "untouchable" to the extent that any politician or public official who dares to broach the subject will invariably suffer politically. The ...
References
External links
*
Brian Martin,
The Controversy Manual' (Sparsnäs, Sweden: Irene Publishing, 2014).
Controversial topicsbased on
machine learning
Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence.
Machine ...
on Wikipedia data
Controversial Today
{{Authority control
English words