The idea is simply that the brain uses two cognitive systems when analyzing, say, political assertions or arguments: a hot cognitive system which is highly emotional, and a cold cognitive system that focuses on facts and truths. Partisan thinkers turn their hot cognitive way up when engaged in thinking about political matters; some commentators have taken this to mean that partisans don't reason at all about their politics, but as Mixing Memory points out in the links above, this is not true. It does seem, however, that the cold cognition part of the brain can be turned way down in emotionally charged political arguments.

All of which brings me to an interesting little piece in Scientific American: "Welfare States, Beyond Ideology" in their Sustainable Development column. This article reinforces what those of us who live in Canada or the so-called "nordic" countries already knew: that higher levels of taxation coupled with an extensive social safety net need not put a brake on productivity; quite the opposite, in fact.

The Western countries with the most extensive social safety nets (what conservative partisans refer as the "welfare states") have some of the lowest unemployment rates in the world. To quote the article:

Budgetary outlays for social purposes average around 27 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the Nordic countries and just 17 percent of GDP in the English-speaking countries... On average, the Nordic countries outperform the Anglo-Saxon ones on most measures of economic performance. Poverty rates are much lower there, and national income per working-age population is on average higher. Unemployment rates are roughly the same in both groups, just slightly higher in the Nordic countries. The budget situation is stronger in the Nordic group, with larger surpluses as a share of GDP.

This is not to say that the welfare state is a good thing in and of itself; that would be partisan in the other direction, and this is my entire point here. There are specific characteristics to the nordic countries' economic policies that make them work; it's not just that welfare is a good thing, it is that a particular set of carefully crafted public policies work. People can get passionately partisan when discussing things like welfare--but in fact topics such as the efficacy of social programs can be studied objectively. We can use the cold cognitive side of our brains to find out which programs work, though often we can only know in retrospect, after decades of social experimentation. In this case, several generations of experience has shown that the social safety net is not in and of itself a drain on economic growth, and can in fact strongly contribute.

Which brings me to the new estimate of the death toll in the Iraq war. The first report I read about it on CNN.com was skeptical; it's interesting that they seem to have revised their article, which now admits that most experts in the area consider the study's methodology sound, and emphasizes that the quoted figure is an estimate within a broad range of possibility. The BBC was more receptive to the study from the start; but then they aren't facing mid-term elections.

Now, it would be easy to engage the hot cognitive system at this point and start slinging partisan mud; I actually have no idea how accurate this particular study is. What's more interesting, though, is that this study suggests that, once again, objective study may be possible to determine exactly how destructive modern wars are. In modern states almost every single citizen in can be polled; census data, mass media and modern software will allow us to collect and study all the stories, big and small, rather than relying on simple metrics such as battlefield body counts. Quite simply: the Bloomberg study can be repeated, any methodological flaws weeded out, and we can determine objectively just how deadly this war has been. Cold cognition can intervene in partisan debate over the human effects of war.

The discovery that we turn up the hot cognitive system when we debate partisan ideas doesn't mean that objective debate is impossible; even the fact that the cognitive scientists themselves can't agree on basic issues shouldn't discourage us. Or rather, if you believe there is nothing in the world but human opinion, then the idea of hot cognition might seem depressing--a suggestion that reason and objectivity are impossible. But the fact is, there is an objective reality out there which can be appealed to for real answers. Even if all we had was hot cognition, we would still have the scientific method as well.

Eventually, the truth will out.

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