The Paradox of Persuasion

At a conference once, I vividly recall my supervisor—a brilliant mathematician—listening intently as a colleague presented his research, using every polished, TED-style public speaking technique imaginable. He leaned over and muttered to me: “We’re not in a theater.”

The impressive public speaking techniques that were meant to captivate the audience had the opposite effect on him. He could see right through them and suspected they might serve to obfuscate the true substance of the research being presented. I’ll admit, my own skepticism was rising as well. “Just show me the model, the assumptions, and the theorems,” I thought.

It’s a curious and sometimes jarring phenomenon that in mathematics departments, it’s often the least charismatic talks that get the most respect. If your research has merit, it’ll stand on its own, without the need for rhetorical flourishes or slick presentations. System 1 Jedi tricks will get you nowhere; mathematicians are trained in the dark arts of System 2.

Meanwhile, outside the math department, our social media feeds are overrun by System 1 masters who, for the first time in history, have quick and direct access to millions of minds. And it makes me wonder whether it’s a good thing that some of our best academics are ill-equipped to engage on a battlefield they haven’t been trained for. The quiet, unadorned pursuit of truth is noble, but in a world where the loudest voices often win, I can’t help but feel a twinge of unease. What happens when the guardians of reason can’t—or won’t—compete in a game where style often trumps substance?