John Stuart Mill famously argued that truth emerges from the “collision of adverse opinions.” The theory, later dubbed a “marketplace of ideas,” is that when competing viewpoints vie for acceptance, the best ideas — those closer to the truth — win.
In theory, wide-open exchange serves democracy. In fact, it doesn’t. Why? For one thing, John Stuart Mill never saw the internet.
The Colorado Sun’s illuminating story (“A Colorado doctor wanted the facts on wolf reintroduction. So he created a watchdog group on Facebook.”; Nov. 9) about John Michael Williams, a Colorado Springs resident who launched a Facebook group called Colorado Wolf Tracker, underscored this point. Williams’ stated goal is noble: to be a clearinghouse for information about wolf reintroduction and a watchdog for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, or CPW.
That is like a traditional newspaper’s mission. The Colorado Sun’s story suggests a more nuanced picture, asking whether Williams created “an extremist group.”
That depends on how you define “extremist.” A review of the group’s discussions indicates that a set of shared assumptions include these apparently nondebatable truths:
- Wolf reintroduction was foisted on hapless ranchers by naïve (or “lunatic leftist”) urbanites.
- Wolves pose an existential threat to ranchers.
- There is no rational basis for wolf reintroduction.
- CPW is secretive and staffed with “liars” and “puppets.”
Here are facts not clearly acknowledged on Colorado Wolf Tracker:
- The rationale for wolf reintroduction is grounded in science.
- Coloradans fund effective, nonlethal coexistence measures.
- When wolves do kill sheep or cattle, Colorado offers compensation. A look at similar programs in other states suggests that compensation is generous.
- CPW, like many public agencies, might not love to share public information. But wolf reintroduction has undergone extensive public vetting.
- The cattle and sheep industry are permitted to use nearly 8 million acres of federal land in Colorado managed by the Bureau of Land Management and are also allowed to use 10.5 million acres of national forest land in Colorado, according to U.S. Forest Service Regional Press Officer Travis Weger. As Woody Guthrie noted, this land is our land. We all deserve a say in how it’s used.
- There are 2.8 million head of cattle in Colorado but only 22 wolves, not counting pups. Montana’s cattle population is similar to Colorado’s, and last year its 1,000 wolves killed 62 cattle. Mountain lions and coyotes kill more cattle than do wolves. The antiwolf rhetoric grossly exaggerates the actual scale of the threat.
Williams says those who frequent his Facebook group include wolf-haters, wolf-lovers and fence-sitters and that he doesn’t want his group to be an echo chamber. Perhaps. But his choir sings mostly from one hymnal.
Suzanne Asha Stone, executive director of the International Wildlife Coexistence Network and a noted expert on wolves, told me her experience with the Facebook group was negative.
Williams was exaggerating the dangers posed by wolves to people, she said, and she responded by mentioning her extensive fieldwork near wolves, armed with nothing more “than a stick for roasting marshmallows.”
“He immediately blocked me from the site and removed my post,” Stone said. She’s not the only one to experience being blocked.
Matt Barnes, owner and rangeland scientist at Shining Horizons Land Management, LLC, told me he, too, has been removed from the group. He characterized Colorado Wolf Tracker as a “cesspool of disinformation, combined with wolf locations, thinly veiled threats to wolves with just enough plausible deniability, and attempts to interfere with CPW’s work.”
Barnes said that’s clearly ironic, “coming from people who love to whine about ‘ballot box biology’ and ‘emotion’ in wildlife management. The group … is clearly designed to inflame people against the restoration and the agency.”
Discussion on the group’s page buttresses those points. A recent post said CPW employees are “liars” who “only have the job because they can’t find a real one.”
When one commenter recently said that Cody Roberts, the Wyoming man who faces new charges for savagely torturing and killing a wolf, should “rot in hell,” another suggested that she was hypersensitive, calling her a “Karon.” Another said, “you gals will just have to clutch your pearls a little tighter when the case gets dismissed.”
In this atmosphere, those who disagree aren’t just wrong; they’re craven, dumb and malevolent.
Colorado Wolf Tracker is not unique. It is one of many venues in which those with different views are denigrated, derided and dismissed. Free discourse is not necessarily responsible discourse.
We should debate matters of public concern with reason, facts and respect. As former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.”
Fine words. But echo chambers that distill and propagate partisan talking points thwart our higher goals and taint our better angels. Those who listen only to voices like theirs have that freedom. No one should pretend their choices are noble.
Voters and wildlife deserve better.
Clint Talbott, of Nederland, was a newspaper journalist for a quarter century and was a 1998 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.
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