What Edward Said, evolutionary biology and the psychology of belief reveal about seeking truth in a mind built to resist it
This article examines two literary works as evidence that even the most credentialed minds are not exempt from the distortions built into human cognition.
“How often does someone’s narrative contradict the truth?”
A friend posed this question to me in 2023 after the October 7 attack that started the war in Gaza. She confessed feeling paralyzed not knowing who or what to believe from polarized voices on social media. At the time I wasn’t sure how to or why we should make sense of the conflicting opinions permeating the digital sphere on politics, war, and other charged topics. Until an article crossed my path “My Beautiful Old House” and other fabrications by Edward Said, written in 1999 by Justus Reid Weiner.
Edward Said’s fabrication-fused life
Weiner’s article presents a fascinating account of how Edward Wadie Said, an Egyptian-American scholar and high ranking Professor at Columbia University, peddled in depth lies about his biography and family history in Palestine related to his family’s origins, property ownership, and the home and town where he grew up. Given Said’s claim to a piece of property that was never owned by his immediate family - combined with his pro-Palestine political activism - Weiner remarks how “political ambitions often seem permanently insusceptible of being satisfied through the normal processes of politics”. Weiner’s article perfectly highlights how omission, emotion, and selective reasoning can quietly converge to construct realities that feel entirely lived and unquestionable and how this perpetuates stories so persuasive that we may inhabit them for an entire lifetime without recognizing their fragile foundations.
Why the debunking of Edward Said is too consequential to ignore
The moment I finished reading the article debunking Said’s claims, a connection of mine shared one of Said’s books with praise on Instagram. I wondered if he knew Said’s life story had been falsified? I also wondered what else Said might have fabricated, exaggerated or omitted in his literary work, given the pathological and pervasive nature of the deceptions uncovered by Weiner. I wondered if the book by Said contained cherry-picked stories to suit a narrative, perhaps one that was passed on by Said’s friends and family. I wondered if this was the same mechanism by which the narrative was partially fueling the conflict in the region today (and now spilling into my own city riddled with terror plots and calls to violence like “Globalize the Intifada”). I also wondered if Said’s Princeton, Harvard and Columbia University credentials lent his stories authority they may not have deserved, causing his audience to not consider fact checking his statements. All of this seemed like uncanny timing and presented an important reason to analyze the challenges with the consumption and presentation of information. Due to the implications for our existence and trajectory as a species - with the potential to both evolve or self implode - it seemed like the perfect time to explore the question: “when it comes to storytelling, whom and what should we believe?” To answer this, let’s look at another example…
The unexpected deception of Sex at Dawn
I became curious about the topic of monogamy in humans cira 2012. Wavering over the decision to marry my boyfriend, and the disdain for the idea of dedicating my life to a marriage and “nuclear family”, I embarked on a mission to answer the questions: are humans meant to be monogamous, is monogamy natural, and what does history and evolutionary biology have to say about the topic? I stumbled across the book Sex at Dawn: the Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha that presented the case for monogamy not being innate to the sociosexual system of humans.
It was a compelling read about the evolution of human mating that seemed to give support in the form of historical data to the hypothesis that humans were not naturally monogamous and that monogamy arose more as an adaptation to social conditions such as the advent of private property. After reading the book I felt rather pleased that my own lifestyle choices were affirmed…that is until I read Sex At Dusk: Lifting the Shiny Wrapping from Sex at Dawn by Lynn Saxon, published two years after Sex At Dawn.
Sex at Dusk: how evidence trumps enthusiasm
Using predominantly the same sources as Ryan and Jetha, in her book Sex at Dusk, Saxon analyzed the “evidence” and citations presented in Sex At Dawn and refuted Ryan and Jetha’s conclusions by filling in gaps, making corrections, and revealing how the authors of Sex at Dawn cherry-picked studies that supported their thesis and omitted studies and data that contradicted their thesis. It was a thoroughly itemized account of the misrepresented citations and research errors committed by Ryan and Jetha.
An example that stood out as particularly shocking was when Saxon showed how in one instance, Ryan and Jetha present an argument by rearranging facts. Ryan and Jetha essentially claim because of A and B, then came C when in fact, it was because of C that A and B had occurred. Saxon was not only more of an expert on the topic than Ryan and Jetha, but she also applied critical thinking and exercised logic and deductive reasoning to pick apart Ryan and Jetha’s research and in doing so made a much stronger case for monogamy being inherent to the human species. Cases like Edward Said and Sex at Dawn reveal how a thesis could potentially become a bias and how readers may mistake the advocacy of an exciting idea as expertise, but it raises more questions like:
What does it take to get to the bottom of things?
It actually took Weiner 3 full years of fact-finding and investigations to uncover the lies and holes in the tale told by Edward Said. Combing through public records and archives in five countries and four continents, Weiner went as far as to inspect properties, court records, school records, and conduct countless interviews with tenants of the properties supposedly owned by Said’s family, interviews of relatives, neighbors, colleagues, and classmates in the schools Said claims to have attended and so on.
Lifewise, Saxon’s credentials as an evolutionary biologist are immediately apparent in the first chapter of Sex at Dusk. Her knowledge displays a lifetime of dedication to studying and researching the fields of evolutionary biology, primatology, and anthropology. But Saxon proves to be a greater authority - not because of her credentials - but because the wealth of data and depth of analysis presented in Sex at Dusk - across a far wider range of research studies and more diverse species - made Ryan and Jetta’s work appear deceitful. It was no wonder that Sex at Dawn was so highly criticized by academics and scholars and praised mostly by non-academic reviewers in the media. In fact, scholars overwhelmingly reviewed Sex At Dawn negatively and when Ryan originally tried to release the book with Oxford University Press, it was rejected after failing the peer review process.
I was left wondering: is our polarized society due to an inherent aversion to the rigor required to uncover truth?
Can an exciting thesis hijack rational inquiry?
Saxon and Weiner demonstrate that dedication, depth and scrutiny can help us see things as they really are. But in the case of Said and Ryan/Jetha, something more seems to be at play that sent the rational mind awry. Had their cause become so fused with their identity that it quietly overrode their capacity for honest reasoning? And if so, what does that tell us about the relationship between belief, emotion, and the stories we choose to tell? I wondered: Did Said and Ryan/Jetta recognize their work was misleading? Or did their passion for the subject shape the way their writing unfolded and what they were willing to see? Were they “calculated deceivers” or more like “convinced story tellers”?
Decades of research in cognitive psychology and behavioural science, including Daniel Kahneman's Nobel Prize-winning research, have established that the human mind is not a neutral processor of information. Cognitive biases are not rare lapses in thinking, but rather they are our “default mode”. They are what Kahneman calls “System 1” phenomena, generated before the rational “System 2” has a chance to evaluate them. By the time we are consciously aware of a judgement, the bias has already shaped it. This is why awareness alone doesn't fix the problem and why even the most credentialed minds are not immune to the distortions built into human cognition.
When examining why Said and Ryen/Jetha had such conviction in their stories, four overlapping mechanisms are worth considering to understand how the human mind filters and distorts information unconsciously and systematically:
Confirmation Bias - the idea that we seek, notice, and remember information selectively if it confirms what we already believe. According to Kahneman, most of us are thinking inside “System 1” the majority of the time - a fast, automatic and largely unconscious mode that operates below awareness. It reads faces, recognizes patterns, and senses danger to avoid. Danger, it turns out, may include anyone who disagrees with us. It doesn’t distinguish between a physical threat and an ideological one. As Kahneman observed: “Very quickly you form an impression, then you spend most of your time confirming it instead of collecting evidence.” By the time the slower, more rational mind gets involved, the verdict has often already been reached.
Motivated Reasoning - the idea that the logical mind works backwards from a desired conclusion made by the emotional mind. As American social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt’s research shows, for most people, institutions come first and strategic reasoning second. According to Haidt, we feel righteous about something first, and then build the case. When a cherished belief is threatened, the brain doesn’t simply ignore it - it actively generates counter arguments, behaving less like a scientist and more like a defense attorney. As Haidt put it in his book the Righteous Mind: “If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased and illogical people become when they disagree with you.”
Identity-Protective Cognition - Yale psychologist Dan Kahan’s research shows that individuals selectively credit and dismiss evidence in patterns that reflect the predominant beliefs in their social group. When a belief becomes so fused with who we are, any challenge to it feels like a personal attack where we no longer have to defend an idea, it feels like defending ourselves. Kahan found that the most cognitively sophisticated people are often the most polarized - not because they reason less, but because they are better at marshalling arguments in defence of what they already believe.
In-Group Loyalty - the idea that the social cost of admitting that one’s tribe is or was wrong is often high enough to make intellectual honesty feel like betrayl. As Haidt observed, “morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle.” For Edward Said, it seems as though decades of academic standing and political identity rested on his narrative of being a Palestinian victim. And for Ryan and Jetha, perhaps a successful writing career and the momentum of a best selling thesis gave them reason to defend rather than question their book’s conclusions. We can see with both examples how the psychological and financial costs of telling the truth or questioning existing beliefs can become too high to pay.
The discipline of doubt
Practical guidelines for algorithm-driven media consumption:
1) Suspend belief without evidence
Aldous Huxley once said, “the deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence”. In 1958 Huxley warned of the crucial importance of evaluating the use of technology in mass societies susceptible to persuasion, and this was in an era when we were less deluged with information. The discernment between fact and fiction is perhaps becoming even less obvious in the noise of today’s digital sphere, with great implication to the human species given the global threat of things like violent religious extremism. The discrepancy between individual “realities” continues to be at the root of most human conflict as each conflicting side is able to mobilize support through selective story telling, aka propaganda.
Since Huxley’s Doors of Perception was written in 1954, through to the psychedelic renaissance of today, we’ve become more aware of how the human mind is prone to filtering and selective reasoning. But sifting through the enormous accumulation of information or “evidence” today demands more dedication to the discovery of truth than ever before. Evidence therefore must trump credentials, but given the possibility of “cherry-picking” facts selectively, one must conduct a rational self-inquiry with questions like:
“Could this expert be an emotional human telling an exciting story?
“Does this expert know all the facts?”
“Is it possible this expert may have already made up their mind before they conducted their work?”
“Do I have the full and complete picture”
And perhaps most importantly: “Why do I need to form a belief about this topic at all?”
2) Fact-find like your life depends on It (it might)
Conflicting narratives amplified by algorithms present a truly daunting challenge. I couldn’t help but notice that Weiner’s article was published in 1999, long before smartphones hijacked our attention spans and before news articles were designed to be click bait for advertising dollars. I sincerely wondered if today’s journalists were capable, willing or incentivized to conduct that type of lengthy investigation and was left concerned that perhaps the art of investigative journalism has been lost.
I wondered, are reporters today willing to travel to five countries to conduct a fact finding expedition such as the one conducted by Weiner, one that arguably pales in comparison to a supreme court discovery process? And, “which publications would fund such an expedition?” Perhaps none, and we are faced with being mostly subjected to stories riddled with bias, unconfirmed hypothesis, and outright false statements. The time and effort required to discern fact from fiction in the digital sphere requires profound dedication. Especially given the examples of Said and Ryan/Jetha, the gathering of evidence to uncover the full and complete account of something controversial likely requires an intense amount of rigor, mastery and hard work. Perhaps we should heed Albert Einstein’s advice when he said “The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.”
3) Consider the motive behind the inquiry
The most respected and credentialed scholars can have hypotheses fueled by bias and subjective experience. Consider the questions a scholar sets out to answer and how they arrived at those questions. Consider how their unique curiosity is shaped by things like their life path, their family and emotions. And it is perhaps the strongest emotions that prompt people to conduct research or tell stories; which may be primitive ones like anger, rage, victimhood, entitlement and so on. Even if one’s radical skepticism is strong, abstaining from emotionally reacting to inputs and maintaining awareness of our biases colored by our own life experience is still a skill - and like a muscle it may require exercise to get strong.
4) Recognize the inherent subjectivity in everything
But alas, the new-age habit of being spoon-fed information by others in short snips is probably here to stay, so it’s probably easier to acknowledge that everything we hear and read is filtered through a subjective lens and is most likely, a very small part of the full story. And in doing so, consider that cherry picking and fact omissions (as opposed to outright lies) may not be a flaw of the human mind but a legacy feature…one that is working as designed, which was to keep us alive in groups, not to keep us accurate. As we engage with humans across the world from all political and religious spectrums, considering the obvious and potential less obvious motives of the story teller and their “tribe” will be crucial for our evolution as consumers of media.
So to answer the original question of:
“How often do our stories contradict the truth?”
Given the emotional and psychological mechanisms at play, most probably, very often. Storytelling presents the inevitable possibility of selective omission or selection of facts to construct an argument in support of a thesis. Among many possible personal, religious and political motivations, lies the reality that a provocative or shocking thesis or title of work is can maximize income for its producer. And with the possibility of more sinister intentions behind propaganda, such as justifying war, mass murder and the revocation of human rights, all which may proliferate with global population growth, we may want to appreciate the great power that amassing more knowledge can bring to those who seek freedom from tyranny and oppression (which I think a decent portion of those reading this do) and how crucial the lost art of cracking open history books might be to our survival.
What good is storytelling given its inherent subjectivity?
My friend’s paralysis shows how unproductive short sound bites and news stories are to those genuinely seeking a greater understanding of important issues. But while reading books and combing through vast amounts of data in search of the “truth” may be helpful, especially when tasked with action, a recent personal experience exemplifies why we should not discount story telling. As outlined previously, a pattern emerged amongst friends I’ve spoken to about the war: when I pressed those who had firmly picked a “side”, what eventually emerged in their passionate discourse was a desire to alleviate suffering for those they perceived to be suffering or have suffered “the most”. That perception also seemed highly influenced by friends and family members. There was simply more empathy for whoever they connected with most on their unique life path.
The importance of story telling to both individuals and the collective is highlighted by Henry Melvill, a British Priest and former Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral, who wrote:
“Ye cannot live only for yourselves. A thousand fibres connect you with your fellowmen; and along those fibres, as along sympathetic threads, run your actions as causes, and return to you as effects.”
The friend that read my article who felt paralized about the polarized narratives online also knows the person who shared Said’s book with praise. The three of us exemplify how interconnected we all are in the sea of human curiosity fed by the river of endless information exchange. So in our new world of rapid cross-border information exchange, the opportunity to empathize with a greater amount of fellow humans has exploded; and the awareness, understanding and harmony that empathy can foster is beyond question. If we liken our in-person and digital exchanges to “sympathetic threads” that connect humanity, then storytelling is most certainly a catalyst for peace.
How do we form belief in our increasingly digital age?
In our digital age, algorithm-driven short-form content, shaped by omissions and truth-blended-narratives, creates a landscape in which compelling stories are often mistaken for knowledge. Nonetheless, both diligent fact-finding and the art of storytelling can guide us towards a deeper understanding of our world and each other. Storytelling, though inherently subjective, is not devoid of value. It connects people across vastly difference circumstances, capable of fostering empathy and bridging divide. Though it behooves us to tread carefully, and with a skeptic's lens, recognize the allure and peril of emotion-fueled narratives that may obscure facts.
If a fact is defined as that which cannot be disputed, then given how often information is disseminated to justify subjective beliefs and agendas, we could easily justify consuming all information through the lens of the harshest skeptic. And for those conducting deep dives on a topic they deem important, considering Edward Said and Sex at Dawn, it stands to reason that those who engage in the most laborious endeavor of fact finding bring us closer to truth. And it may be the case that we have become better suited to sitting in the discomfort of not knowing.
Thus, delicately balancing passive consumption and active diligence - and maintaining awareness of the difference between the empirical and the narrative - is not just a scholarly pursuit but a collective responsibility, one that demands commitment to discerning the layered truths that shape our shared human experience.
….
As if in each of us
There once was a fire
And for some of us
There seem as if there are only ashes now
But when we dig in the ashes
We find one ember
…..
That's what you and I are here to celebrate
That though we've lived our life totally involved in the world
We know, We know that we're of the spirit
The ember gets stronger
Flame starts to flicker a bit
And pretty soon you realize that all we're going to do for eternity
Is sit around the fire
- Ram Dass