A lot of television and radio shows, particularly news or discussion shows, approach things on the principle of balance. You’ve got to show both sides of the debate and give them equal air-time.
So you get expert number one, Chicken Little, come on and say “The sky is falling, the sky is falling”
Expert number two, puts the counter position “The sky isn’t falling, the principles of gravity don’t work that way, and in the unlikely even that the sky was ever to fall, here would be some catastrophic signs and evidence that we would get”
And then the presenter wraps up, often with the expression “Well, the controversy rages on”
So the listener/viewer doesn’t learn much more than that some people think the sky is falling, others think it isn’t. Some people think that Evolution is a load of nonsense and that the existence of bananas prove that*, others think it isn’t. Some people think that the Holocaust is a fake Jewish conspiracy and it never happened, some people don’t. Some people think we should intervene militarily in Syria, some people think we shouldn’t.
[*Re – Bananas disprove evolution. I am not kidding, this is actually an argument]
The overwhelming message is that there are two sides to every story, there are no right or wrong answers.
What we don’t get is any analysis of whether Chicken Little is someone to be relied upon, or whether a detailed look at Chicken Little’s claims mean that almost anyone with an informed view would disagree.
And so you end up with Chicken Little’s views being just as much air time and weight as the counter-opinion, in order to have ‘balance’
I’m all for balanced debate when the issues are balanced – you can learn a hell of a lot from listening to people who have a contrary view. But it is helpful to know whether the debate is actually balanced (the Syria thing there are genuinely good and awful points on both sides, and though I might have views I wouldn’t say that the other camp is wholly wrong) or whether frankly one side is just wrong (The Holocaust really did happen, Evolution is not nonsense, the sky is not falling)
Long-term readers of the blog may well be aware that the Family Justice Board published some research on the neuroscience behind neglect – it’s all available and discussed here:-
https://suesspiciousminds.com/2012/11/05/taking-neglect-seriously/
And then Wastell and White published a critique of that research, essentially saying that it is being misused to make political decisions and justify a direction of travel that the individual studies simply don’t support
https://suesspiciousminds.com/2013/01/14/semantics-pedantics-and-neuro-mantics/
In very brief summary (the two articles tell you much much more, as do the source papers cited within them), there are two camps on what the neuroscience says. The FJB camp says that the neuroscience shows that there is hard evidence that neglect is very damaging to the underlying structure of children’s brains and that this neglect is difficult or not possible to recover from and that timely intervention and stopping the neglect early is thus vital. The Wastell/White camp say that the scientific evidence for these assertions is simply not there, that the studies the FJB camp rely on are either irrelevant or have been wildly overstated and that in particular, there is neuroscientific evidence that brains are more ‘plastic’ than the FJB camp claim – i.e that where damage occurs, the brain recovers and repairs that damage.
I candidly said in the second piece that not being a neuroscientist, I have no idea whether Wastell and White are correct in their demolition of the FJB research, or whether they are wrong.
I don’t know who “Chicken Little” is in this scenario, or whether either of the camps are “Chicken Little”, but that given that the FJB research has been an important underpinning “child-focussed” reason for the drive towards faster intervention and faster resolution of care proceedings, it is rather important that people who ARE in a position to say :-
(a) The FJB camp are right
(b) Wastell and White are right
(c) One of them is probably more right than the other, but there are some real gray areas that need more studies and better evidence to be confident about deciding the issues
Are asked to say so.
If we are going to make policy decisions, or case decisions, we really do need to know if there is genuine doubt here and the extent to which that doubt impacts on how confident one can be about the research, or if one of the camps is a Chicken Little. [For what it is worth, I really don’t believe that Wastell and White are Chicken-Littling here. But I am no neuroscientist]
What I learn recently is that whilst the judiciary were all of course sent the FJB research (on the basis that finally, the Courts were going to be given some research on which decisions could safely and properly be taken)
they have now also been sent, without comment, the counter critique of Wastell and White.
Specifically, they were sent THIS document, which was produced for a conference organised by counsels chambers, 14 Grays Inn. As what I am doing here is linking to their website featuring it, and naming that 14 Grays Inn produced it and Wastell and White authored it, I don’t believe I am treading on anyone’s toes re authorship or copyright (but will take down the link if people object)
I think it is pretty important that people who are arguing cases in front of Judges know what research material the Court has been sent, and it may help to know that all Judges have been provided with access to both the FJB research AND this paper from 14 Grays Inn which critiques it.
http://www.14graysinnsquare.co.uk/The_childs_time_frame_%20a_neuro-scientific_perspective.pdf
What of course they DO NOT have, is any objective independent peer review of both documents, to answer the questions I have set out before. Which effectively makes the research fairly useless. We are left with the stereotypical TV presenter summary of “well, the controversy rages on”
I wonder if the same is going to be true once the FJB publish their research on the level of contact which is desirable for children (yes, it will), or the impact of drug misuse on family life and the ability of parents to recover from drug misuse (yes, probably) and whether if all the Judges are getting are a set of controversial research papers and effectively being told that the science is controversial on all these issues, whether there is any value to it at all?
I was very supportive of the FJB producing some framework research which would answer some vital underpinning questions in child protection, but it seems to me that this has value only if the Courts who are potentially relying on that research have clear understanding of whether that research represents accurately the mainstream thinking of professionals within that field, and where any gaps are that result in the need to be more cautious about certain aspects.
[The 14 Grays Inn paper is worth reading in any event, and I would urge you to do so, if you can find the time. A lot of the neuroscience is similar to already linked to on my earlier two blogs, but there is some new stuff. The “Error at the Door” piece about initial assessment is really very good]
suesspiciousminds 